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JOHNSONIAN  MISCELLANIES 


G.  BIRKBECK  HILL 


VOL.  II. 


Johnsonian 

Miscellanies 

s'  y  r 

ARRANGED  AND  EDITED 

BY 


GEORGE  BIRKBECK  HILL,  D.C.L.,  LL.D. 

HONORARY  FELLOW  OF  PEMBROKE  COLLEGE,  OXFORD 

editor  of  *  boswell’s  life  of  Johnson  ’ 

AND  OF  ‘  THE  LETTERS  OF  SAMUEL  JOHNSON  ’ 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
VOL.  II 


NEW  YORK 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  FRANKLIN  SQUARE 

1897 


3  3  9  or  r 


©xforb 

PRINTED  AT  THE  CLARENDON  PRESS 

BY  HORACE  HART,  M.A. 

PRINTER  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY 

/ 


c)  (o  3  z  In 

V'Z 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

— • "  » »-  — 

PAGE 

Apophthegms,  &c.,  from  Hawkins’s  Edition  of  Johnson’s  Works  .  .  i 

Extracts  from  James  Boswell’s  Letters  to  Edmond  Malone  .  .  .21 

Anecdotes  from  the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Campbell’s  Diary  of  a  Visit  to 
England  in  1775 . 39 

Anecdotes  from  Pennington’s  Memoirs  of  Mrs.  Carter  .  .  .  .  58 

Anecdotes  from  Joseph  Cradock’s  Memoirs  . . 61 

Anecdotes  from  Richard  Cumberland’s  Memoirs . 72 

Extracts  from  Sir  John  Hawkins’s  Life  of  Johnson  ....  79 

Anecdotes  from  Miss  Hawkins’s  Memoirs . 139 

Narrative  by  John  Hoole  of  Johnson’s  end . 145 

Anecdotes  from  the  Life  of  Johnson  published  by  Kearsley  .  .  .161 

Anecdotes  by  Lady  Knight . 171 

Anecdotes  from  Hannah  More’s  Memoirs . 177 

Anecdotes  by  Bishop  Percy . 208 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  on  Johnson’s  Character . 219 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  on  Johnson’s  Influence . 229 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s  Two  Dialogues  in  Imitation  of  Johnson’s  Style  of 
Conversation — 

Dialogue  I . 232 

Dialogue  II . 237 

Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson  by  Miss  Reynolds . 250 

Anecdotes  by  William  Seward . 301 

Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens . .  3 12 


VI 


Contents. 


PAGE 

Anecdotes  from  the  Rev.  Percival  Stockdale’s  Memoirs  .  .  .  330 

A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson  by  Thomas  Tyers  .  335 

Narrative  of  the  Last  Week  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  Life  by  the  Right  Hon. 
William  Windham . 3^2 

Minor  Anecdotes— 

By  Robert  Barclay . '  3^9 

By  H.  D.  Best . 39° 

By  Sir  Brooke  Boothby . 39 1 

By  the  Rev.  W.  Cole . 392 

By  William  Cooke  ..........  393 

From  the  European  Magazine . 394 

By  Richard  Green . 397 

By  T.  Green . 399 

By  Ozias  Humphry  ..........  400 

By  Dr.  Lettsom . 402 

From  Croker’s  Edition  of  Boswell’s  Life  of  Johnson  .  .  .  403 

By  Dr.  John  Moore . 408 

By  John  Nichols  ..........  409 

By  the  Rev.  Mr.  Parker . 413 

By  William  Weller  Pepys  ........  416 

By  the  Rev.  Hastings  Robinson . 417 

By  Mrs.  Rose . 419 

From  Shaw’s  History  of  Staffordshire . 422 

Adam  Smith  on  Dr.  Johnson . 423 

Dugald  Stewart  on  Boswell’s  Anecdotes . 425 

From  Gilbert  Stuart’s  History  of  the  Rise  of  the  Arts  of  Design  in 
the  United  States . 425 

By  the  Rev.  Richard  Warner . 426 

By  Mr.  Wickins . 427 

Styan  Thirlby,  by  Dr.  Johnson . 430 

Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson — 

To  Samuel  Richardson . 435 

To  Samuel  Richardson . 436 

To  Samuel  Richardson . 438 

To  Dr.  George  Hay . 439 

To  the  Rev.  Thomas  Percy . 440 


Contents. 


vii 


PAGE 

To  the  Rev.  Thomas  Percy . 441 

To  the  Rev.  Edward  Lye . 441 

To  William  Strahan . 442 

To  James  Macpherson . 446 

To . . 447 

To  the  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor . 447 

To  Miss  Reynolds . 448 

To  Miss  Reynolds . 449 

To  Miss  Reynolds . 450 

To  Miss  Porter . 450 

To  the  Rev.  Mr.  Allen . 451 

To  Miss  Thrale . 451 

To  the  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor . 452 

To  the  Rev.  James  Compton . 453 

To  Miss  Reynolds . 453 

To  Francesco  Sastres . 454 

To  Griffith  Jones . 454 

To  Miss  Reynolds  (enclosing  a  letter  to  be  sent  in  her  name  to 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds) . 455 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  to  Miss  Reynolds . 456 

James  Boswell  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds . 457 

James  Boswell  to  Lord  Thurlow . 459 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  to  James  Boswell . 460 

Dr.  Adams  to  Dr.  Scott . 460 

Addenda . 463 

Index  .............  469 

5H 


Dicta  Philosophi 


APOPHTHEGMS ,  SENTIMENTS 

OPINIONS,  &  OCCASIONAL  REFLECTIONS' 


Dr.  Johnson  used  to  say,  that  where  secrecy  or  mystery 
began,  vice  or  roguery  was  =not  far  off ;  and  that  he  leads  in 
general  an  ill  life,  who  stands  in  fear  of  no  man’s  observation 2. 

When  a  friend  of  his  who  had  not  been  very  lucky  in  his  first 
wife,  married  a  second,  he  said — Alas !  another  instance  of  the 
triumph  of  hope  over  experience 3. 

Of  Sheridan’s  writings  on  Elocution,  he  said,  they  were 
a  continual  renovation  of  hope,  and  an  unvaried  succession  of 
disappointments  4. 


1  From  the  eleventh  volume  of  Sir 
John  Hawkins’s  edition  of  Johnson’s 
Works  (pp.  195-216),  published  in 
1787-9,  in  13  vols.  8 vo.  Many  of 
the  ‘  Apophthegms,’  &c.,  there  in¬ 
cluded,  which  had  been  copied  from 
Steevens’s  Collection  in  the  Euro¬ 
pean  Magazijie  for  January,  1875, 
will  be  found  post,  under  Anecdotes 
by  George  Steevens.  One  or  two, 
moreover,  which  in  like  manner  were 
borrowed  from  Seward,  will  be  found 
post ,  under  his  name. 

2  See  ante,  i.  326,  for  his  dislike 
of  ‘  mysteriousness  in  trifles,’  and 
post,  p.  8,  for  ‘  the  vices  of  retire¬ 
ment.’  Boswell,  recounting  how 
Johnson  in  the  Oxford  post-coach 
‘  talked  without  reserve  of  the  state  of 
his  affairs,’  continues  : — ‘  Indeed  his 

VOL.  II.  B 


openness  with  people  at  a  first  inter¬ 
view  was  remarkable.’  Life,  iv.  284. 
See  post,  in  Seward’s  Anecdotes. 

3  Life,  ii.  128.  The  Lord  Chan¬ 
cellor  Audley,  in  his  speech  in  par¬ 
liament  on  Henry  VIII’s  troubles  in 
his  two  first  marriages,  said  : — ‘  What 
man  of  middle  condition  would  not 
this  deter  from  marrying  a  third 
time?  Yet  this  our  most  excellent 
prince  again  condescends  to  contract 
matrimony.’  Pari.  Hist.  i.  528. 

4  For  Johnson’s  contempt  of  Sheri¬ 
dan’s  oratory  see  Life,  i.  453,  iv. 
222. 

In  the  Life,  ii.  122,  this  anecdote 
is  thus  recorded  on  the  authority  of 
Dr.  Maxwell : — ‘  Of  a  certain  player 
he  remarked,  that  his  conversation 
usually  threatened  and  announced 

He 


2 


A pophthegms ,  Sentiments 


He  used  to  say,  that  no  man  read  long  together  with  a  folio 
on  his  table : — Books,  said  he,  that  you  may  carry  to  the  fire, 
and  hold  readily  in  your  hand,  are  the  most  useful  after  all. 
He  would  say,  such  books  form  the  man  of  general  and  easy 
reading  \ 

He  was  a  great  friend  to  books  like  the  French  E sprits  d’an 
tel ;  for  example,  Beauties  of  Watts 2,  &c.,  &c.,  at  which,  said  he, 
a  man  will  often  look  and  be  tempted  to  go  on,  when  he  would 
have  been  frightened  at  books  of  a  larger  size  and  of  a  more 
erudite  appearance. 

Being  once  asked  if  he  ever  embellished  a  story — No,  said 
he ;  a  story  is  to  lead  either  to  the  knowledge  of  a  fact  or 
character,  and  is  good  for  nothing  if  it  be  not  strictly  and 
literally  true 3. 

Round  numbers,  said  he,  are  always  false  4. 

Watts’s  Improvement  of  the  Mind  was  a  very  favourite  book 
with  him  5 ;  he  used  to  recommend  it,  as  he  also  did  Le  Diction- 
naire  portatif  of  the  Abbe  L’ Avocat 6. 


more  than  it  performed  ;  that  he  fed 
you  with  a  continual  renovation  of 
hope,  to  end  in  a  constant  succes¬ 
sion  of  disappointment.’ 

According  to  the  Edinburgh  Cou- 
rant,  June  16,  1792,  this  player  was 
Macklin.  Foote  accused  him  ‘  of 
reading  in  the  morning  for  the  pur¬ 
pose  of  shewing  off  at  night.’  Cooke’s 
Memoirs  of  Macklin ,  p.  246.  See 
post ,  in  Steevens’s  Anecdotes. 

1  ‘J°knson  advised  me  to  read 
just  as  inclination  prompted  me, 
which  alone,  he  said,  would  do  me 
any  good ;  for  I  had  better  go  into 
company  than  read  a  set  task.’  Let¬ 
ters  of  Boswell,  p.  28. 

In  1781  The  Beauties  of  Johnson 
was  published.  Life,  iv.  148.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  Dr.  Anderson  {Life  of  Johnson, 
ed.  1815,  p.  231)  the  selection  was 
made  by  Thomson  Callender,  the 
nephew  of  the  poet  Thomson,  who 
eleven  years  later  fled  to  America  to 
escape  a  prosecution  for  his  Political 
Progress  oj  Great  Britain.  There 


he  distinguished  himself  by  the  vio¬ 
lence  of  his  attacks,  first  on  Washing¬ 
ton  and  John  Adams,  and  next  on 
Jefferson.  Diet,  of  Nat.  Blog.  It 
was  a  long  step  from  The  Beauties 
of  Joh?ison. 

Lamb  wrote  on  Feb.  26,  1808  : — 
‘We  have  Specimens  of  Ancient  Eng¬ 
lish  Poets ,  Specimens  of  Modern 
English  Poets ,  Specimens  of  Ancient 
English  Prose  Writers  without  end. 
They  used  to  be  called  Beauties. 
You  have  seen  Beauties  of  Shake¬ 
speare;  so  have  many  people  that 
never  saw  any  beauties  in  Shake¬ 
speare.’  Ainger’s  Letters  of  Lamb, 
i.  244. 

3  Ante,  i.  225. 

4  Life,  iii.  226,  n.  4. 

s  In  his  Life  of  Watts  he  says  : — 
‘Few  books  have  been  perused  by 
me  with  greater  pleasure  than  his 
I mprovement  of  the  Mind.’  Works, 
viii.  3S5. 

6  This  work  is  not  in  the  British 
Museum. 

He 


Opinions ,  and  Occasional  Reflections. 


3 


He  has  been  accused  of  treating  Lord  Lyttelton  roughly  in 
his  life  of  him ;  he  assured  a  friend,  however,  that  he  kept  back 
a  very  ridiculous  anecdote  of  him,  relative  to  a  question  he  put 
to  a  great  divine  of  his  time x. 

Johnson’s  account  of  Lord  Lyttelton’s  envy  to  Shenstone  for 
his  improvements  in  his  grounds,  &c.1  2,  was  confirmed  by  an  in¬ 
genious  writer.  Spence  was  in  the  house  for  a  fortnight  with  the 
Lytteltons,  before  they  offered  to  shew  him  Shenstone’s  place. 

When  accused  of  mentioning  ridiculous  anecdotes  in  the  lives 
of  the  poets,  he  said,  he  should  not  have  been  an  exact  bio¬ 
grapher  if  he  had  omitted  them.  The  business  of  such  a  one, 
said  he,  is  to  give  a  complete  account  of  the  person  whose  life 
he  is  writing,  and  to  discriminate  him  from  all  other  persons 
by  any  peculiarities  of  character  or  sentiment  he  may  happen 
to  have  3. 

He  spoke  Latin  with  great  fluency  and  elegance.  He  said, 
indeed,  he  had  taken  great  pains  about  it 4. 

A  very  famous  schoolmaster  said,  he  had  rather  take  Johnson’s 


1  ‘  Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  Life  of  Lyttel¬ 
ton,  suppressed  an  anecdote  which 
would  have  made  his  memory  ridi¬ 
culous.  He  was  a  man  rather  melan¬ 
choly  in  his  disposition,  and  used  to 
declare  to  his  friends,  that  when  he 
went  to  Vauxhall  he  always  supposed 
pleasure  to  be  in  the  next  box  to  his 
- — at  least,  that  he  himself  was  so 
unhappily  situated  as  always  to  be 
in  the  wrong  box  for  it.’  Europea7i 
Magazine ,  1798,  p.  376. 

F or  the  Life  of  Lyttelton  see  Life , 
iv.  57,  64. 

2  ‘For  a  while  the  inhabitants  of 
Hagley  affected  to  tell  their  ac¬ 
quaintance  of  the  little  fellow  that 
was  trying  to  make  himself  admired; 
but  when  by  degrees  the  Leasowes 
forced  themselves  into  notice,  they 
took  care  to  defeat  the  curiosity 
which  they  could  not  suppress,  by 

conducting  their  visitants  perversely 
to  inconvenient  points  of  view,  and 

introducing  them  at  the  wrong  end 


of  a  walk  to  detect  a  deception  ;  in¬ 
juries  of  which  Shenstone  would 
heavily  complain.’  Works ,  viii.  410. 

3  Malone,  recording  a  conversa¬ 

tion  with  Johnson  about  the  account 
he  gave  of  Addison’s  reclaiming  his 
loan  to  Steele  by  an  execution,  con¬ 
tinues  : — ‘  I  then  mentioned  to  him 
that  some  people  thought  that  Mr. 
Addison’s  character  was  so  pure,  that 
the  fact,  though  true ,  ought  to  have 
been  suppressed.  He  saw  no  reason 
for  this.  “  If  nothing  but  the  bright 
side  of  characters  should  be  shewn, 
we  should  sit  down  in  despondency, 
and  think  it  utterly  impossible  to 
imitate  them  in  any  thing?'  Life, 
iv.  53.  ‘  M‘Leod  asked,  if  it  was  not 

wrong  in  Orrery  to  expose  the  defects 
of  a  man  with  whom  he  lived  in 
intimacy.  JOHNSON.  “  Why  no,  Sir, 
after  the  man  is  dead ;  for  then  it  is 
done  historically.”  ’  lb .  v.  238. 

See  also  ib.  i.  9,  30,  32. 

4  Ib.  ii.  125,  404.  Ante,  i.  417* 


4 


A pophthegms,  Sentiments 


opinion  about  any  Latin  composition,  than  that  of  any  other 
person  in  England. 

Dr.  Sumner,  of  Harrow1,  used  to  tell  this  story  of  Johnson: 
they  were  dining  one  day,  with  many  other  persons,  at 
Mrs.  Macaulay’s  ;  she  had  talked  a  long  time  at  dinner  about 
the  natural  equality  of  mankind  ;  Johnson,  when  she  had  finished 
her  harangue,  rose  up  from  the  table,  and  with  great  solemnity 
of  countenance,  and  a  bow  to  the  ground,  said  to  the  servant, 
who  was  waiting  behind  his  chair,  Mr.  John,  pray  be  seated  in 
my  place,  and  permit  me  to  wait  upon  you  in  my  turn :  your 
mistress  says,  you  hear,  that  we  are  all  equal 2. 

When  some  one  was  lamenting  Foote’s  unlucky  fate  in  being 
kicked  in  Dublin,  Johnson  said  he  was  glad  of  it ;  he  is  rising  in 
the  world,  said  he :  when  he  was  in  England,  no  one  thought  it 
worth  while  to  kick  him  3. 

He  was  much  pleased  with  the  following  repartee :  Fiat 
experimentum  in  cor  pore  vili ,  said  a  French  physician  to  his 
colleague,  in  speaking  of  the  disorder  of  a  poor  man  that 
understood  Latin,  and  who  was  brought  into  an  hospital ;  corpus 
non  tam  vile  est ,  says  the  patient,  pro  quo  Christ  us  ipse  non 
dedignatus  est  mori 4. 

Johnson  used  to  say,  a  man  was  a  scoundrel  that  was  afraid  of 
any  thing 5. 

After  having  disused  swimming  for  many  years,  he  went  into 
the  river  at  Oxford,  and  swam  away  to  a  part  of  it  that  he  had 
been  told  of  as  a  dangerous  place,  and  where  some  one  had  been 
drowned 6. 

He  waited  on  Lord  Marchmont7  to  make  some  inquiries  after 
particulars  of  Mr.  Pope’s  life  ;  his  first  question  was, — What 
kind  of  a  man  was  Mr.  Pope  in  his  conversation  ?  his  lordship 
answered,  that  if  the  conversation  did  not  take  something 


1  Ante ,  i.  161. 

2  Life,  i.  447  ;  iii.  77. 

3  Ante,  i.  424. 

4  ‘  Let  the  experiment  be  tried 

on  a  worthless  body.’  ‘  Not  so 

worthless  is  the  body  for  which 

Christ  himself  thought  it  no  scorn 
to  die.’ 


5  For  Johnson’s  one  dread  see 
post ,  p.  16 ;  for  his  use  of  the  word 
scoundrel  see  Life ,  iii.  1. 

6  lb.  ii.  299. 

7  lb.  iii.  392.  Lord  Marchmont’s 
daughter  gave  Sir  Walter  Scott  ‘  per¬ 
sonal  reminiscences  of  Pope.’  Lock¬ 
hart’s  Scott ,  ed.  1839,  i*  343* 


of 


Opinions ,  and  Occasional  Reflections. 


5 


of  a  lively  or  epigrammatick  turn,  he  fell  asleep,  or  perhaps 
pretended  to  do  so  x. 

Talking  one  day  of  the  patronage  the  great  sometimes  affect 
to  give  to  literature,  and  literary  men  : — ‘  Andrew  Millar,’  says 
he,  ‘  is  the  Maecenas  of  the  age1  2 3.’ 

Of  the  state  of  learning  among  the  Scots,  he  said : — ‘  It  is  with 
their  learning  as  with  provisions  in  a  besieged  town,  every  one 
has  a  mouthful,  and  no  one  a  bellyfullV 

Of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  he  requested  three  things;  that  he 
would  not  work  on  a  Sunday ;  that  he  would  read  a  portion  of 
Scripture  on  that  day ;  and  that  he  would  forgive  him  a  debt 
which  he  had  incurred  for  some  benevolent  purpose  4. 

When  he  first  felt  the  stroke  of  palsy,  he  prayed  to  God 
that  he  would  spare  his  mind,  whatever  he  thought  fit  to  do  with 
his  body  5. 

To  some  lady  who  was  praising  Shenstone’s  poems  very  much, 
and  who  had  an  Italian  greyhound  lying  by  the  fire,  he  said, 
‘  Shenstone  holds  amongst  poets  the  same  rank  your  dog  holds 
amongst  dogs ;  he  has  not  the  sagacity  of  the  hound,  the  docility 
of  the  spaniel,  nor  the  courage  of  the  bull-dog,  yet  he  is  still 
a  pretty  fellow 6.’ 


1  ‘When  he  wanted  to  sleep  he 
“  nodded  in  company  ”  ;  and  once 
slumbered  at  his  own  table  while  the 
Prince  of  Wales  was  talking  of  poetry.’ 
Works ,  viii.  309. 

2  For  Andrew  Millar,  the  book¬ 
seller,  see  Life ,  i.  287,  n.  3. 

3  Ib.  ii.  363. 

Sir  Walter  Scott,  in  his  Address 
at  the  opening  of  the  Edinburgh 
Academy,  quoting  Johnson’s  saying, 
continued  : — ‘  Sturdy  Scotsman  as 
he  was,  he  was  not  more  attached  to 

Scotland  than  to  truth  ;  and  it  must 
be  admitted  that  there  was  some 
foundation  for  the  Doctor’s  remark.’ 

Lockhart’s  Scott ,  ed.  1839,  vii.  271. 
‘  A  Scotchman  must  be  a  very  sturdy 
moralist  who  does  not  love  Scot¬ 
land  better  than  truth.’  Life ,  ii. 
311,  n.  4. 


4  In  these  requests  Reynolds 
‘  readily  acquiesced.’  However,  after 
a  time  he  resumed  his  Sunday  work. 
Ib.  iv.  414,  n.  1.  ‘Sir  Godfrey 
Kneller,’  according  to  Pope,  ‘  called 
employing  the  pencil  the  prayer  of  a 
painter.’  Warton’s  Pope’s  Works, 
ed.  1822,  viii.  213.  S te  fost,  p.  203. 

5  Describing  the  stroke  to  Mrs. 
Thrale,  he  wrote  : — ‘  I  was  alarmed 
and  prayed  God  that  however  he 
might  afflict  my  body  he  wrould  spare 
my  understanding.  This  prayer  that 
I  might  try  the  integrity  of  my  facul¬ 
ties  I  made  in  Latin  verse.’  Letters , 
ii.  301  ;  Life ,  iv.  230  ;  ante ,  i.  in. 

6  ‘We  talked  of  Shenstone.  Dr. 
Johnson  said  he  was  a  good  layer- 
out  of  land,  but  would  not  allow  him 
to  approach  excellence  as  a  poet.’ 
Ib.  v.  267. 


Johnson 


6 


Apophthegms,  Sentiments 


Johnson  said  he  was  better  pleased  with  the  commendations 
bestowed  on  his  account  of  the  Hebrides  than  on  any  book  he 
had  ever  written.  Burke,  says  he,  thought  well  of  the  philosophy 
of  it ;  Sir  William  Jones  of  the  observations  on  language;  and 
Mr.  Jackson  of  those  on  trade  k 

Of  Foote’s  wit  and  readiness  of  repartee  he  thought  very 
highly ; — ‘  He  was,’  says  he,  ‘  the  readiest  dog  at  an  escape  I  ever 
knew ;  if  you  thought  you  had  him  on  the  ground  fairly  down, 
he  was  upon  his  legs  and  over  your  shoulders  again  in  an 
instant k’ 

When  some  one  asked  him,  whether  they  should  introduce 
Hugh  Kelly,  the  author,  to  him  ; — ‘No,  Sir,’  says  he,  ‘  I  never 
desire  to  converse  with  a  man  who  has  written  more  than  he  has 
read.’  Yet  when  his  play  was  acted  for  the  benefit  of  his. 
widow,  Johnson  furnished  a  prologue1 2 3. 

He  repeated  poetry  with  wonderful  energy  and  feeling.  He; 
was  seen  to  weep  whilst  he  repeated  Goldsmith’s  character  of 
the  English  in  his  Traveller ,  beginning  thus : 

‘  Stern  o’er  each  bosom,’  &c.4 


1  ‘  Dr.  Johnson  observed,  that  every 
body  commended  such  parts  of  his 
Jcno'iiey  to  the  Western  Islands ,  as 
were  in  their  own  way.  “  F or  in¬ 
stance,  (said  he,)  Mr.  Jackson  (the 
all-knowing)  told  me  there  was  more 
good  sense  upon  trade  in  it,  than  he 
should  hear  in  the  House  of  Com¬ 
mons  in  a  year,  except  from  Burke. 
Jones  commended  the  part  which 
treats  of  language  ;  Burke  that  which 
describes  the  inhabitants  of  moun¬ 
tainous  countries.”  ’  Life ,  iii.  137.  It 
was  in  the  reflections  on  the  life  and 
economy  of  the  Highlanders,  and  on 
the  changes  rapidly  taking  place  in 
the  clan  system, that  ‘the  philosophy’ 
was  found. 

For  Jackson  see  ib.  iii.  19;  Let¬ 
ters,  ii.  349. 

2  ‘  One  species  of  wit  Foote  has  in 

an  eminent  degree,  that  of  escape. 

You  drive  him  into  a  corner  with 


both  hands  ;  but  he’s  gone,  Sir,  when 
you  think  you  have  got  him — like  an 
animal  that  jumps  over  your  head.’ 
Life ,  iii.  69.  ‘  Foote  is  the  most  in¬ 

compressible  fellow  that  I  ever  knew; 
when  you  have  driven  him  into  a 
corner,  and  think  you  are  sure  of 
him,  he  runs  through  between  your 
legs,  or  jumps  over  your  head,  and 
makes  his  escape.’  Ib.  v.  391. 

3  Ib.  iii.  1 1 3  ;  ante,  i.  181,  432. 

‘  On  reading  over  this  Prologue  to 
Dr.  Johnson  the  morning  after  it  was 
spoken,  the  Doctor  told  me  that 
instead  of  renewed  hostilities  he 
wrote  revengeful petulatice,  and  did 
not  seem  pleased  with  the  alteration.’ 
MS.  note  by  Rev.  J.  Hussey. 

The  couplet  as  altered,  stands  : — 
‘Let  no  renewed  hostilities  invade 
Th’  oblivious  grave’s  inviolable 
shade.’ 

4  It  was  at  Oban  that  this  hap- 

He 


Opinions ,  and  Occasional  Reflections . 


7 


He  was  supposed  to  have  assisted  Goldsmith  very  much  in  that 
poem,  but  has  been  heard  to  say,  that  he  might  have  contributed 
three  or  four  lines,  taking  together  all  he  had  done x. 

He  held  all  authors  very  cheap,  that  were  not  satisfied  with 
the  opinion  of  the  publick  about  them.  He  used  to  say,  that 
every  man  who  writes,  thinks  he  can  amuse  or  inform  mankind, 
and  they  must  be  the  best  judges  of  his  pretensions2. 

Of  Warburton  he  always  spoke  well.  He  gave  me,  says  he, 
his  good  word  when  it  was  of  use  to  me.  Warburton,  in  the 
Preface  to  his  Shakespeare,  has  commended  Johnson’s  Observa¬ 
tions  on  Macbeth 3. 

Two  days  before  he  died,  he  said,  with  some  pleasantry, — Poor 
Johnson  is  dying;  ****  will  say,  he  dies  of  taking  a  few  grains 
more  of  squills  than  were  ordered  him  ;  ****  will  say,  he  dies  of 
the  scarifications  made  by  the  surgeon  in  his  leg4.  His  last  act 
of  understanding  is  said  to  have  been  exerted  in  giving  his 
blessing  to  a  young  lady  that  requested  it  of  him  5. 

He  was  always  ready  to  assist  any  authors  in  correcting  their 
works,  and  selling  them  to  booksellers. — I  have  done  writing, 
said  he,  myself,  and  should  assist  those  that  do  write 6. 


pened.  ‘We  talked  of  Goldsmith’s 
Traveller ,  of  which  Dr.  Johnson 
spoke  highly ;  and,  while  I  was  help¬ 
ing  him  on  with  his  great  coat,  he 
repeated  from  it  the  character  of  the 
British  nation,  which  he  did  with 
such  energy,  that  the  tear  started 
into  his  eye.’  Life ,  v.  344. 

1  lb.  ii.  5. 

2  lb.  iv.  172  ;  post,  p.  19.  Smollett, 
writing  of  the  Age  of  George  II, 
says  :  —  ‘  Genius  in  writing  spon¬ 
taneously  arose ;  and,  though  neg¬ 
lected  by  the  great,  flourished  under 
the  culture  of  a  public  which  had 
pretensions  to  taste,  and  piqued  it¬ 
self  on  encouraging  literary  merit.’ 
History  of  England,  ed.  1800,  v. 
379- 

‘  When  somebody  was  highly  prais¬ 
ing  Milton  George  II  asked,  “Why 
did  he  not  write  his  Paradise  Lost  in 


prose?”’  Warton’s  Pope’s  Works, 
iv.  199,  n . 

3  Life ,  i.  175  ;  iv.  288.  Johnson, 
in  his  Shakespeare ,  often  ridicules 
Warburton.  See  ante,  i.  381,  and 
Post,  in  Steevens’s  Anecdotes. 

4  The  supposed  speakers  \yere 
Brocklesby  and  Heberden.  The  wit 
has  been  lost  in  the  narration ;  for 
what  Johnson  said  see  post,  in  Wind¬ 
ham’s  Anecdotes. 

5  Life,  iv.  418 ;  ante,  i.  447,  n.  5. 

6  lb.  ii.  195  ;  iii.  373 ;  iv.  121. 

The  Rev.  John  Hussey  wrote  on 

his  copy  of  the  first  edition  of  Bos¬ 
well,  opposite  a  passage  about  profits 
of  authors  (lb.  iv.  121)  : — ‘  Mem. 
Mr.  Townshend’s  manuscripts.  I 
think  it  was  Mr.  Allen,  the  late 
Minister  of  Wandsworth,  who  told 
me  that  Mr.  Townshend  (if  that  were 
his  name,  he  was  afterwards  either 

When 


8  *  Apophthegms ,  Sentiments 

When  some  one  asked  him  for  what  he  should  marry,  he 
replied,  first,  for  virtue ;  secondly,  for  wit ;  thirdly,  for  beauty  ; 
and  fourthly,  for  money x. 

He  thought  worse  of  the  vices  of  retirement  than  of  those 
of  society 2. 

He  attended  Mr.  Thrale  in  his  last  moments,  and  stayed  in 
the  room  praying,  as  is  imagined,  till  he  had  drawn  his  last 
breath. — His  servants,  said  he,  would  have  waited  upon  him  in 
this  awful  period,  and  why  not  his  friend  3  ? 

He  was  extremely  fond  of  reading  the  lives  of  great  and 
learned  persons4.  Two  or  three  years  before  he  died,  he  applied 
to  a  friend  of  his  to  give  him  a  list  of  those  in  the  French 
language  that  were  well  written  and  genuine.  He  said,  that 
Bolingbroke  had  declared  he  could  not  read  Middleton’s  life 
of  Cicero 5. 

He  was  a  great  enemy  to  the  present  fashionable  way  of 
supposing  worthless  and  infamous  persons  mad. 

He  was  not  apt  to  judge  ill  of  persons  without  good  reasons  ; 


Printer  or  Stationer  to  the  East  India 
Company)  in  the  early  part  of  his 
life  was  seized  with  the  cacoethes 
scribendi ,  and  having  finished  a  Pam¬ 
phlet  wished  much  to  have  Mr.  John¬ 
son’s  opinion  of  it,  before  he  offered 
it  to  the  Publick.  So  without  any 
previous  knowledge  or  introduction, 
he  called  on  Johnson,  and  humbly 
requested  him  to  peruse  the  Manu¬ 
script  of  his  first  production ;  which 
was  with  great  good  nature  im¬ 
mediately  acquiesced  in  :  when  he 
had  finished  it  he  said  to  Mr.  Towns- 
hend,  “  Pray,  Sir,  are  you  of  any 
profession  ?  ”  “A  Printer,  at  your 
service.”  “Then,  Sir,  I  would  recom¬ 
mend  you  to  print  any  work  rather 
than  your  own  ;  it  will  turn  out  more 
to  your  advantage  if  you  get  paid  for 
it,  and  if  it  be  worth  printing,  in¬ 
finitely  more  to  your  credit.”  This 
interview  Townshend  spoke  of  in  his 
latter  days  with  grateful  remem¬ 


brance  ;  a  different  reception,  he  said, 
would  have  flattered  his  vanity  and 
allured  him  to  poverty  and  con¬ 
tempt.’ 

1  Life ,  ii.  128  ;  iv.  131. 

2  lb.  v.  62. 

3  lb.  iv.  84  ;  ante ,  i.  96. 

4  lb.  i.  425  ;  v.  79. 

5  Johnson  would  not  read  Boling- 
broke’s  works— at  all  events  his 
Philosophical  works.  Ib.  i.  330. 

‘  My  Lord  Bolingbroke  has  lost 
his  wife.  .  .  .  Dr.  Middleton  told  me 
a  compliment  she  made  him  two 
years  ago  which  I  thought  pretty. 
She  said  she  was  persuaded  that  he 
was  a  very  great  writer,  for  she  un¬ 
derstood  his  works  better  than  any 
other  English  book,  and  that  she 
had  observed  that  the  best  writers 
were  always  the  most  intelligible.’ 
[She  was  a  Frenchwoman.]  Wal¬ 
pole’s  Letters,  ii.  202. 

an 


t 


Opinions ,  and  Occasional  Reflections. 


9 


an  old  friend  of  his  used  to  say,  that  in  general  he  thought  too 
well  of  mankind  \ 

One  day,  on  seeing  an  old  terrier  lie  asleep  by  the  fire-side  at 
Streatham,  he  said.  Presto,  you  are,  if  possible,  a  more  lazy  dog 
than  I  am1  2. 

Being  told  that  Churchill  had  abused  him  under  the  character 
of  Pomposo,  in  his  Ghost, — I  always  thought,  said  he,  he  was 
a  shallow  fellow  and  I  think  so  still 3. 

When  some  one  asked  him  how  he  felt  at  the  indifferent 
reception  of  his  tragedy  at  Drury-lane ; — Like  the  Monument, 
said  he,  and  as  unshaken  as  that  fabrick 4. 

Being  asked  by  Dr.  Lawrence  what  he  thought  the  best 
system  of  education,  he  replied, — School  in  school-hours,  and 
home-instruction  in  the  intervals 5. 

I  would  never,  said  he,  desire  a  young  man  to  neglect  his 
business  for  the  purpose  of  pursuing  his  studies,  because  it  is 
unreasonable ;  I  would  only  desire  him  to  read  at  those  hours 
when  he  would  otherwise  be  unemployed.  I  will  not  promise 
that  he  will  be  a  Bentley ;  but  if  he  be  a  lad  of  any  parts,  he 
will  certainly  make  a  sensible  man  6, 

The  picture  of  him  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  which  was  painted 
for  Mr.  Beauclerk,  and  is  now  Mr.  Langton’s,  and  scraped  in 


1  1  As  he  was  ever  one  of  the  most 
quick-sighted  men  I  ever  knew  in 
discovering  the  good  and  amiable 
qualities  of  others,  so  was  he  ever 
inclined  to  palliate  their  defects.’ 
Hawkins,  p.  50. 

‘  Reynolds  said  of  Johnson  : — 
“  He  was  not  easily  imposed  upon 
by  professions  to  honesty  and  can¬ 
dour  ;  but  he  appeared  to  have  little 
suspicion  of  hypocrisy  in  religion.”  ’ 
Taylor’s  Reynolds ,  ii.  459.  See  also 
Life ,  ii.  236. 

2  Ante ,  i.  189. 

3  ‘No,  Sir,  I  called  the  fellow  a 
blockhead  at  first,  and  I  will  call 

him  a  blockhead  still.  However,  I 

will  acknowledge  that  I  have  a  better 

opinion  of  him  now,  than  I  once 


had  ;  for  he  has  shewn  more  fertility 
than  I  expected.  To  be  sure,  he  is 
a  tree  that  cannot  produce  good  fruit : 
he  only  bears  crabs.  But,  Sir,  a 
tree  that  produces  a  great  many 
crabs  is  better  than  a  tree  which 
produces  only  a  few.’  Life,  i.  418.  See 
also  ib.  i.  406. 

4  Ib.  i.  199. 

5  See  ante ,  i.  161,  where  he  op¬ 
posed  the  imposition  of  holiday  tasks 
by  the  schoolmaster.  For  Dr.  Law¬ 
rence  see  Life,  ii.  296. 

6  ‘  Snatches  of  reading  (said  John¬ 
son)  will  not  make  a  Bentley  or 
a  Clarke.  They  are  however  in  a 
certain  degree  advantageous.’  Ib. 
iv.  21. 


mezzotinto 


IO 


A pophthegms,  Sentiments 


mezzotinto  by  Doughty,  is  extremely  like  him  ;  there  is  in  it 
that  appearance  of  a  labouring  working  mind,  of  an  indolent 
reposing  body,  which  he  had  to  a  very  great  degree.  Beauclerk 
wrote  under  his  picture, 

- ‘  ingenium  ingens 

Inculio  habet  hoc  sub  corfore  V 

Indeed,  the  common  operations  of  dressing,  shaving,  &c.,  were 
a  toil  to  him ;  he  held  the  care  of  the  body  very  cheap1  2.  He 
used  to  say,  that  a  man  who  rode  out  for  an  appetite  consulted 
but  little  the  dignity  of  human  nature. 

He  was  much  pleased  with  an  Italian  improvvisatore ,  whom  he 
saw  at  Streatham,  and  with  whom  he  talked  much  in  Latin. 
He  told  him,  if  he  had  not  been  a  witness  to  his  faculty  himself, 
he  should  not  have  thought  it  possible.  He  said,  Isaac  Hawkins 
Browne 3  had  endeavoured  at  it  in  English,  but  could  not  get 
beyond  thirty  verses. 

When  a  Scotsman  was  one  day  talking  to  him  of  the  great 
writers  of  that  country  that  were  then  existing,  he  said :  ‘We 
have  taught  that  nation  to  write 4,  and  do  they  pretend  to  be  our 
teachers  ?  let  me  hear  no  more  of  the  tinsel  of  Robertson,  and 
the  foppery  of  Dairy mple5.’  He  said,  Hume  has  taken  his  style 
from  Voltaire6.  He  would  never  hear  Hume  mentioned  with 
any  temper: — ‘A  man,’  said  he,  ‘who  endeavoured  to  persuade 
his  friend  who  had  the  stone  to  shoot  himself7.’ 


1  Ante,  i.  458;  Life ,  iv.  180. 

2  Ante,  i.  241  ;  Life ,  i.  396  ;  ii.  406. 

3  Ante ,  i.  266. 

4  Dr.  Beattie  wrote  on  Jan.  5, 
1778  : — ‘We  who  live  in  Scotland 
are  obliged  to  study  English  from 
books,  like  a  dead  language,  which 
we  understand,  but  cannot  speak.’ 
He  adds  : — ‘  I  have  spent  some  years 
in  labouring  to  acquire  the  art  of 
giving  a  vernacular  cast  to  the  Eng¬ 
lish  we  write.’  Forbes’s  Beattie , 
p.  243. 

5  ‘  Doubtless  Goldsmith’s  His¬ 

tory  is  better  than  the  verbiage  of 

Robertson  or  the  foppery  of  Dal- 


rymple.’  Life ,  ii.  236. 

6  ‘  When  I  talked  of  our  advance¬ 
ment  in  literature,  “  Sir,  (said  he,) 
you  have  learnt  a  little  from  us,  and 
you  think  yourselves  very  great  men. 
Hume  would  never  have  written 
History,  had  not  Voltaire  written  it 
before  him.  He  is  an  echo  of  Vol¬ 
taire.”  ’  Lb.  ii.  53. 

Wordsworth  said: — ‘the Scotch  his¬ 
torians  did  infinite  mischief  to  style, 
with  the  exception  of  Smollett,  who 
wrote  good  pure  English.’  Words¬ 
worth’s  Life ,  ii.  459.  See  Life ,  i.  439, 
for  Hume’s  style. 

7  Seven  years  after  Hume’s  death 

Upon 


Opinions ,  and  Occasional  Reflections. 


ii 


Upon  hearing  a  lady  of  his  acquaintance  commended  for  her 
learning,  he  said  : — ‘  A  man  is  in  general  better  pleased  when  he 
has  a  good  dinner  upon  his  table,  than  when  his  wife  talks  Greek. 
My  old  friend,  Mrs.  Carter  z,  said  he,  could  make  a  pudding,  as 
well  as  translate  Epictetus  from  the  Greek,  and  work  a  handker¬ 
chief  as  well  as  compose  a  poem.’  He  thought  she  was  too 
reserved  in  conversation  upon  subjects  she  was  so  eminently  able 
to  converse  upon,  which  was  occasioned  by  her  modesty  and  fear 
of  giving  offence 2. 

Being  asked  whether  he  had  read  Mrs.  Macaulay’s  second 
volume  of  the  History  of  England  ; — ‘  No,  Sir,’  says  he,  4  nor  her 


a  work  was  published  m  London 
called  Essays  on  Suicide  and  the 
Immortality  of  the  Soul ,  ascribed  to 
the  late  David  Hume ,  Esq.  That 
Hume  wrote  these  Essays,  and  in¬ 
tended  to  publish  them,  is  an  inci¬ 
dent  in  his  life  which  ought  not  to 
be  passed  over ;  but  it  is  also  part 
of  his  history  that  he  repented  of 
the  act  at  the  last  available  mo¬ 
ment,  and  suppressed  the  publication.’ 
J.  H.  Burton’s  Hume ,  ii.  13.  See 
also  Letters  of  Hume  to  Strahan , 
pp.  230-3,  355,  362.  The  work  was 
published  not  seven  years,  but  one 
year  after  his  death.  In  the  Essay 
on  Suicide  he  says  : — ‘  Let  us  here 
endeavour  to  restore  men  to  their 
native  liberty  by  examining  all  the 
common  arguments  against  suicide, 
and  shewing  that  that  action  may 
be  free  from  every  imputation 
of  guilt  or  blame,  according  to  the 
sentiments  of  all  the  ancient  phi¬ 
losophers.’  Ed.  1777,  p.  5.  On 
p.  15  he  says  : — ‘  When  the  horror  of 
pain  prevails  over  the  love  of  life  ; 
when  a  voluntary  action  anticipates 
the  effects  of  blind  causes,  ’tis  only 
in  consequence  of  those  powers  and 
principles  which  he  [the  supreme 
creator]  has  implanted  in  his 
creatures.’ 

I  cannot  find  any  account  of  his 


endeavouring  to  persuade  his  friend 
to  shoot  himself.  Perhaps  it  was  as¬ 
sumed  that  the  Essay  was  written  for 
some  one  man. 

1  Life ,  i.  122,  n.  4.  ‘  Dr.  Johnson 

maintained  to  me,  contrary  to  the 
common  notion,  that  a  woman  would 
not  be  the  worse  wife  for  being 
learned.’  Ib.  ii.  76.  See  also  ib.  v. 
226. 

‘  It  is,  indeed,  an  unhappy  circum¬ 
stance  in  a  family,  where  the  wife 
has  more  knowledge  than  the  hus¬ 
band  ;  but  it  is  better  it  should  be 
so  than  that  there  should  be  no  know¬ 
ledge  in  the  whole  house.’  Addison’s 
Works ,  ed.  1864,  iv.  319.  ‘If  I 
had  a  daughter,’  wrote  Lord  Chester¬ 
field,  ‘  I  would  give  her  as  much 
learning  as  a  boy.’  Chesterfield’s 
Letters  to  A.  C.  Stajihope ,  ed.  1817, 
p.  151. 

2  She  is,  no  doubt,  the  Lady  meant 
in  the  following  passage  in  Sir 
Charles  Grandison  (ed.  1754,  i.  63), 
where  Miss  Byron  says  : — ‘  Who,  I, 
a  woman  know  anything  of  Latin  and 
Greek  !  I  know  but  one  Lady  who 
is  mistress  of  both ;  and  she  finds 
herself  so  much  an  owl  among  the 
birds,  that  she  wants  of  all  things 
to  be  thought  to  have  unlearned 
them.’ 


first 


12 


A pophthegms ,  Sentiments 


first  neither1.’  He  would  not  be  introduced  to  the  Abbe 
Raynal,  when  he  was  in  England 2. 

He  said,  that  when  he  first  conversed  with  Mr.  Bruce,  the 
Abyssinian  traveller,  he  was  very  much  inclined  to  believe  he 
had  been  there ;  but  that  he  had  afterwards  altered  his  opinion 3. 

He  was  much  pleased  with  Dr.  Jortin’s  Sermons,  the  language 
of  which  he  thought  very  elegant 4 ;  but  thought  his  life  of 
Erasmus  a  dull  book. 

He  was  very  well  acquainted  with  Psalmanaazar,  the  pretended 
Formosan,  and  said,  he  had  never  seen  the  close  of  the  life  of 
any  one  that  he  wished  so  much  his  own  to  resemble,  as  that 
of  him,  for  its  purity  and  devotion.  He  told  many  anecdotes  of 
him ;  and  said  he  was  supposed  by  his  accent  to  have  been 
a  Gascon.  He  said,  that  Psalmanaazar  spoke  English  with  the 
city  accent,  and  coarsely  enough.  He  for  some  years  spent  his 
evenings  at  a  publick  house  near  Old-Street 5,  where  many 
persons  went  to  talk  with  him;  Johnson  was  asked  whether  he 
ever  contradicted  Psalmanaazar ; — ‘  I  should  as  soon/  said  he, 
‘have  thought  of  contradicting  a  bishop6;’  so  high  did  he  hold 


1  Of  her  he  said  :  — ‘  She  is  better 
employed  at  her  toilet,  than  using 
her  pen.  It  is  better  she  should  be 
reddening  her  own  cheeks,  than 
blackening  other  people’s  characters.’ 
Life ,  iii.  46.  In  the  Sale  Catalogue  of 
his  Library,  Lot  68  is  ‘  Macaulay’s 
History  of  England,  2  v.  1763-5.’ 

2  Mrs.  Chapone  wrote  to  Mrs. 

Carter  on  June  15,  1777  : — ‘  I  sup¬ 
pose  you  have  heard  a  great  deal  of 
the  Abb6  Raynal,  who  is  in  London. 

I  fancy  you  would  have  served  him 
as  Dr.  Johnson  did,  to  whom  when 

Mrs.  Vesey  introduced  him,  he  turned 
from  him,  and  said  he  had  read  his 
book,  and  would  have  nothing  to  say 
to  him.’  Mrs.  Chapone’s  Posthumous 

Works ,  i.  172.  His  book  was  burnt 
by  the  common  hangman  in  Paris. 
Carlyle’s  French  Revolution ,ed.  1857, 
i.  45.  Carlyle  wrote  to  his  future 
wife  in  1824  : — ‘  If  you  are  for  fiery- 


spirited  men,  I  recommend  you  to 
the  Abbe  Raynal,  whose  History ,  at 
least  the  edition  of  1781,  is,  to  use 
the  words  of  my  tailor  respecting 
Africa,  “  wan  coll  (one  coal)  of  burn¬ 
ing  sulphur.”  ’  Early  Letters  of  T. 
Carlyle ,  ii.  268.  See  ante ,  i.  21 1. 

3  Ante,  i.  365,  n.  1;  Life,  ii.  333  ; 
Letters,  i.  313,  n.  I . 

Southey,  reviewing  Lord  Valen- 
tia’s  Travels,  agreed  with  his  lord- 
ship  in  questioning  Bruce’s  state¬ 
ments.  ‘  I  think  Lord  Valentia  is 
rather  unfair  to  Bruce  ;  (wrote  Scott) 
I  know  that  surly  Patagonian.’  He 
adds  that  he  must  have  been  in 
Abyssinia.  Letters  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  Boston,  U.S.A.  i.  148. 

4  Life,  iii.  248  ;  iv.  16 1  ;  Letters , 
ii.  276,  n.  1. 

5  Life,  iv.  187. 

6  Ib.'w.  274.  See  zb.  iii.  443-9  for  my 
note  on  Psalmanazar,  and  ante ,  i.  266. 

his 


Opinions ,  and  Occasional  Reflections. 


13 


his  character  in  the  latter  part  of  his  life.  When  he  was  asked 
whether  he  had  ever  mentioned  Formosa  before  him,  he  said,  he 
was  afraid  to  mention  even  China. 

He  thought  Cato  the  best  model  of  tragedy  we  had  1 ;  yet  he 
used  to  say,  of  all  things,  the  most  ridiculous  would  be,  to  see 
a  girl  cry  at  the  representation  of  it 2. 

He  thought  the  happiest  life  was  that  of  a  man  of  business, 
with  some  literary  pursuits  for  his  amusement;  and  that  in 
general  no  one  could  be  virtuous  or  happy,  that  was  not  com¬ 
pletely  employed  3. 

Johnson  had  read  much  in  the  works  of  Bishop  Taylor;  in  his 


Dutch  Thomas  a  Kempis  he  has 
margin 4. 

1  See  ante,  i.  185,  for  Johnson’s 
random  talk  about  authors,  and  Life , 
i.  199,  n.  2,  and  Works ,  vii.  456,  for 
his  criticism  of  Cato  in  his  Life  of 
Addison.  In  the  Preface  to  his 
Shakespeare  he  says  (ed.  1765,  p. 
35)  : — *  Voltaire  expresses  his  wonder 
that  our  authour’s  extravagancies  are 
endured  by  a  nation  which  has  seen 
the  tragedy  of  Cato.  Let  him  be 
answered,  that  Addison  speaks  the 
language  of  poets  and  Shakespeare 
of  men.  We  find  in  Cato  innumerable 
beauties  which  enamour  us  of  its 
authour,  but  we  see  nothing  that 
acquaints  us  with  human  sentiments 
or  human  actions.  .  .  .  We  pronounce 
the  name  of  Cato ,  but  we  think  on 
Addison.’ 

‘  I  have  always  thought  that  those 
pompous  Roman  sentiments  are  not 
so  difficult  to  be  produced,  as  is 
vulgarly  imagined.  A  stroke  of  nature 
is  worth  a  hundred  such  thoughts  as 
“  When  vice  prevails,  and  impious 
men  bear  sway, 

The  post  of  honour  is  a  private 
station.” 

Cato  is  a  fine  dialogue  on  liberty  and 
the  love  of  one’s  country.’  J.  War- 
ton’s  Essay  on  Pope ,  2nd  ed.,  i.  259  ; 


quoted  him  occasionally  in  the 


Warton  published  this  Essay  four¬ 
teen  years  before  Wordsworth  was 
born. 

2  ‘  A  lady  observing  to  one  of  her 
maid-servants,  when  she  came  in 
from  the  play  [Hannah  More’s  Fatal 
Falsehood ],  that  her  eyes  looked  red, 
as  if  she  had  been  crying,  the  girl, 
by  way  of  apology,  said,  “  Well, 
Ma’am,  if  I  did,  it  was  no  harm  ;  a 
great  many  respectable  people  cried 
too.”  ’  H.  More’s  Memoirs ,  i.  164. 

3  ‘  That  accurate  judge  of  human 
life,  Dr.  Johnson,  has  often  been  heard 
by  me  to  observe,  that  it  was  the 
greatest  misfortune  which  could  be¬ 
fall  a  man  to  have  been  bred  to  no 
profession,  and  pathetically  to  regret 
that  this  misfortune  was  his  own.’ 
More’s  Practical  Piety ,  p.  313.  See 
Life ,  iii.  309.  See  ante ,  i.  238,  n.  2, 
and  post  in  Seward’s  Anecdotes. 

4  ‘  In  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  in 
order  to  satisfy  himself  whether  his 
mental  faculties  were  impaired,  he 
resolved  that  he  would  try  to  learn 
a  new  language,  and  fixed  upon  the 
Low  Dutch,  for  that  purpose,  and 
this  he  continued  till  he  had  read 
about  one  half  of  Tho?nas  a  Kempis.’ 
Life ,  iv.  21. 


He 


i4 


A pophthegms ,  Sentiments 


He  is  said  to  have  very  frequently  made  sermons  for  clergy¬ 
men  at  a  guinea  a-piece1;  that  delivered  by  Dr.  Dodd,  in  the 
chapel  of  Newgate,  was  written  by  him,  as  was  also  his  Defence, 
spoken  at  the  bar  of  the  Old  Bailey 2. 

Of  a  certain  lady’s  entertainments,  he  said, — What  signifies 
going  thither?  there  is  neither  meat,  drink,  nor  talk3. 

He  advised  Mrs.  Siddons  to  play  the  part  of  Queen  Catherine 
in  Henry  VIII. 4  and  said  of  her,  that  she  appeared  to  him  to  be 
one  of  the  few  persons  that  the  great  corruptors  of  mankind, 
money  and  reputation,  had  not  spoiled 5. 

He  had  a  great  opinion  of  the  knowledge  procured  by 


1  ‘Johnson  was  never  greedy  of 
money,  but  without  money  could  not 
be  stimulated  to  write.  I  have  been 
told  by  a  clergyman  with  whom  he 
had  been  long  acquainted,  that,  being 
to  preach  on  a  particular  occasion, 
he  applied  to  him  for  help.  “  I  will 
write  a  sermon  for  thee,”  said  John¬ 
son,  “  but  thou  must  pay  me  for  it.”  ’ 
Hawkins,  p.  84.  See  ante ,  i.  82,  and 
Life ,  v.  67. 

2  Ib.  iii.  141  ;  ante ,  i.  432. 

3  ‘  I  advised  Mrs.  Thrale,  who  has 
no  card-parties  at  her  house,  to  give 
sweet-meats,  and  such  good  things, 
in  an  evening,  as  are  not  commonly 
given,  and  she  would  find  company 
pnough  come  to  her  ;  for  every  body 
loves  to  have  things  which  please  the 
palate  put  in  their  way,  without 
trouble  or  preparation.’  Life ,  iii.  186. 

4  ‘  He  asked  her  which  of  Shake¬ 
speare’s  characters  she  was  most 
pleased  with.  Upon  her  answering 
that  she  thought  the  character  of 
Queen  Catherine  in  Henry  the  Eighth 
the  most  natural : — “  I  think  so  too, 
Madam,  (said  he,)  and  whenever  you 
perform  it  I  will  once  more  hobble 
out  to  the  theatre  myself.’”  Ib.  iv. 
242. 

‘The  meek  sorrows  and  virtuous 
distress  of  Catherine  have  furnished 
some  scenes  which  may  be  justly 


numbered  among  the  greatest  efforts 
of  tragedy.  But  the  genius  of  Shake¬ 
speare  [in  Henry  VIII ]  comes  in  and 
goes  out  with  Catherine.  Every  other 
part  may  be  easily  conceived  and 
easily  written.’  Johnson’s  Shake¬ 
speare,  ed.  1765,  v.  491.  Of  the 
second  scene  of  the  fourth  act  he 
writes :  ‘  This  scene  is  above  any 
other  part  of  Shakespeare’s  tragedies, 
and  perhaps  above  any  scene  of  any 
other  poet,  tender  and  pathetick, 
without  gods,  or  furies,  or  poisons,  or 
precipices,  without  the  help  of  ro- 
mantick  circumstances,  without  im¬ 
probable  sallies  of  poetical  lamenta¬ 
tion,  and  without  any  throes  of 
tumultuous  misery.’  Ib.  p.462.  The 
piety  of  the  sentiments  perhaps  in¬ 
fluenced  his  judgement. 

5  He  wrote  of  Mrs.  Siddons  to 
Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘  Neither  praise  nor 
money,  the  two  powerful  corrupters 
of  mankind,  seem  to  have  depraved 
her.’  Letters ,  ii.  345.  ‘  Being  asked 

if  he  could  not  wish  to  compose  a 
part  in  a  new  tragedy  to  display  her 
powers,  he  replied,  “  Mrs.  Siddons 
excels  in  the  pathetic,  for  which  I 
have  no  talent.”  Then  says  his 
friend,  “  Imperial  tragedy  must  be¬ 
long  to  you  ”  (alluding  to  his  Irene). 
Johnson  smiled.’  Gentleman' s  Maga- 
zine ,  1785,  p.  86. 


conversation 


Opinions ,  and  Occasional  Reflections. 


J5 


conversation  with  intelligent  and  ingenious  persons1.  His  first 
question  concerning  such  as  had  that  character,  was  ever,  What 
is  his  conversation 2  ? 

Johnson  said  of  the  Chattertonian  controversy, — It  is  a  sword 
that  cuts  both  ways.  It  is  as  wonderful  to  suppose  that  a  boy  of 
sixteen  years  old  had  stored  his  mind  with  such  a  train  of 
images  and  ideas  as  he  had  acquired,  as  to  suppose  the  poems, 
with  their  ease  of  versification  and  elegance  of  language,  to  have 
been  written  by  Rowlie  in  the  time  of  Edward  the  Fourth3. 

Talking  with  some  persons  about  allegorical  painting,  he  said, 
*  I  had  rather  see  the  portrait  of  a  dog  that  I  know,  than  all  the 
allegorical  paintings  they  can  shew  me  in  the  world  V 

When  a  Scotsman  was  talking  against  Warburton  5,  Johnson 
said  he  had  more  literature  than  had  been  imported  from 
Scotland  since  the  days  of  Buchanan.  Upon  his  mentioning 
other  eminent  writers  of  the  Scots, — ‘  These  will  not  do,’  said 
Johnson,  ‘let  us  have  some  more  of  your  northern  lights,  these 
are  mere  farthing  candles6.’ 

A  Scotsman  upon  his  introduction  to  Johnson  said: — ‘I  am 
afraid,  Sir,  you  will  not  like  me,  I  have  the  misfortune  to  come 
from  Scotland.’  ‘  Sir,’  answered  he,  ‘  that  is  a  misfortune  ;  but 
such  a  one  as  you  and  the  rest  of  your  countrymen  cannot  help  V 


1  Life ,  ii.  361  ;  iii.  22. 

2  Id.  iv.  19. 

3  ‘Johnson  said  of  Chatterton, 
“  This  is  the  most  extraordinary- 
young  man  that  has  encountered  my 
knowledge.  It  is  wonderful  how  the 
whelp  has  written  such  things.”  ’ 
lb.  iii.  51. 

4  For  his  feelings  towards  art  see 
ib.  i.  363,  n.  3,  and  ante,  i.  214. 

s  Fielding,  addressing  Learning, 
says  : — ‘  Give  me  a  while  that  key  to 
all  thy  treasures  which  to  thy  War- 
burton  thou  hast  entrusted.’  Tom 
Jones,  Bk.  xiii.  ch.  1.  (Warburton 
was  the  nephew  by  marriage  of 
Fielding’s  patron,  Allen.)  Johnson 
told  George  III  that  ‘he  had  not 
read  much  compared  with  Dr.  War¬ 
burton.’  Life,  ii.  36. 


On  this  saying  Mr.  Pattison  re¬ 
marks : — ‘A  modest  admission,  yet 
strictly  true,  even  understood  of  bare 
quantity.  But  Johnson  was  not 
thinking  of  volumes  by  number.  He 
knew  that  Warburton’s  readings 
ranged  over  whole  classes  of  books 
into  which  he  himself  had  barely 
dipped.’  Mark  Pattison’s  Essays, 
ed.  1889,  ii.  122.  On  p.  131  Pattison 
says  that  Bishop  Newton,  in  his 
parallel  between  Jortin  and  War¬ 
burton,  ‘adds  that  Jortin  “was  per¬ 
haps  the  better  Greek  and  Latin 
scholar.”  “  Better  ”  implies  com¬ 
parison.  The  fact  was  that  Jortin 
was  a  scholar  in  every  sense  of  the 
word ;  Warburton  in  none.’ 

6  Life,  v.  57,  80. 

7  The  Scotsman  was  Boswell ;  for 

To 


i6 


Apophthegms,  Sentiments 


To  one  who  wished  him  to  drink  some  wine  and  be  jolly, 
adding, — ‘You  know  Sir,  in  vino  veritas .’  4  Sir,’  answered  he, 

4  this  is  a  good  recommendation  to  a  man  who  is  apt  to  lie  when 
sober1.’ 

When  he  was  first  introduced  to  General  Paoli,  he  was  much 
struck  with  his  reception  of  him  ;  he  said  he  had  very  much  the 
air  of  a  man  who  had  been  at  the  head  of  a  nation :  he  was  par¬ 
ticularly  pleased  with  his  manner  of  receiving  a  stranger  at  his 
own  house,  and  said  it  had  dignity  and  affability  joined  together2. 

Johnson  said,  he  had  once  seen  Mr.  Stanhope,  Lord  Chester¬ 
field’s  son,  at  Dodsley’s  shop,  and  was  so  much  struck  with  his 
awkward  manners  and  appearance,  that  he  could  not  help  asking 
Mr.  Dodsley  who  he  was3. 

Speaking  one  day  of  tea,  he  said, — What  a  delightful  beverage 
must  that  be,  that  pleases  all  palates,  at  a  time  when  they  can 
take  nothing  else  at  breakfast 4 ! 

To  his  censure  of  fear  in  general,  he  made  however  one 
exception,  with  respect  to  the  fear  of  death,  timorum  maximus ; 
he  thought  that  the  best  of  us  were  but  unprofitable  servants, 
and  had  much  reason  to  fear 5. 

Johnson  thought  very  well  of  Lord  Karnes’s  Elements  of 
Criticism  ;  of  other  of  his  writings  he  thought  very  indifferently, 
and  laughed  much  at  his  opinion,  that  war  was  a  good  thing 
occasionally,  as  so  much  valour  and  virtue  were  exhibited  in  it 6. 
A  fire,  says  Johnson,  might  as  well  be  thought  a  good  thing; 
there  is  the  bravery  and  address  of  the  firemen  employed  in 


what  was  really  said  see  Life ,  i.  392, 
and  ante,  i.  427. 

1  Ante ,  i.  321  ;  Life ,  ii.  188. 

2  1  General  Paoli  (he  said)  had  the 
loftiest  port  of  any  man  he  had  ever 
seen.’  Lb.  ii.  82. 

3  Lb.  iv.  333.  See  my  Introduction 
(p.  43)  to  the  Worldly  Wisdom  of 
Lord  Chesterfield. 

4  Ante ,  i.  414. 

5  Ante ,  i.  330,  445  ;  Life ,  iv.  299. 

6  Karnes,  speaking  of  the  ‘  less 
savage  aspect  ’  of  modern  wars, 
says  : — ‘  Such  wars  give  exercise  to 
the  elevated  virtues  of  courage,  gene¬ 


rosity  and  disinterestedness,  which 
are  always  attended  with  conscious¬ 
ness  of  merit  and  dignity.’  Sketches 
of  the  History  of  Man ,  ed.  1819,  ii. 
74.  Tennyson,  when  he  wrote  Maud , 
thought  with  him.  For  Johnson’s 
estimate  of  The  Elements  of  Criti¬ 
cism  see  Life,  i.  393  ;  ii.  89.  ‘  Adam 

Smith,  on  being  complimented  on 
the  group  of  great  writers  who  were 
then  reflecting  glory  on  Scotland, 
said,  “Yes,  but  we  must  every  one 
of  us  acknowledge  Karnes  for  our 
master.’”  Life  of  Adam  Smith  by 
John  Rae,  p.  31. 

extinguishing 


Opinions ,  and  Occasional  Reflections. 


17 


extinguishing  it ;  there  is  much  humanity  exerted  in  saving  the 
lives  and  properties  of  the  poor  sufferers  ;  yet,  says  he,  after  all 
this,  who  can  say  a  fire  is  a  good  thing  ? 

Speaking  of  schoolmasters,  he  used  to  say,  they  were  worse 
than  the  Egyptian  task-masters  of  old.  No  boy,  says  he,  is 
sure  any  day  he  goes  to  school  to  escape  a  whipping :  how  can 
the  schoolmaster  tell  what  the  boy  has  really  forgotten,  and 
what  he  has  neglected  to  learn ;  what  he  has  had  no  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  learning,  and  what  he  has  taken  no  pains  to  get 
at  the  knowledge  of?  yet  for  any  of  these,  however  difficult 
they  may  be,  the  boy  is  obnoxious  to  punishment x. 

He  used  to  say  something  tantamount  to  this  :  When  a  woman 
affects  learning,  she  makes  a  rivalry  between  the  two  sexes  for 
the  same  accomplishments,  which  ought  not  to  be,  their  provinces 
being  different1 2.  Milton  said  before  him, 

‘  F or  contemplation  he  and  valour  form’d, 

For  softness  she  and  sweet  attractive  grace3.’ 

He  used  to  say,  that  in  all  family-disputes  the  odds  were  in 
favour  of  the  husband,  from  his  superior  knowledge  of  life  and 
manners:  he  was,  nevertheless,  extremely  fond  of  the  company 
and  conversation  of  women,  and  was  early  in  life  much  attached 
to  a  most  beautiful  woman  at  Lichfield,  of  a  rank  superior  to 
his  own 4. 

He  never  suffered  any  one  to  swear  before  him.  When 

- ,  a  libertine,  but  a  man  of  some  note,  was  talking  before 

him,  and  interlarding  his  stories  with  oaths,  Johnson  said, 
‘  Sir,  all  this  swearing  will  do  nothing  for  our  story,  I  beg  you 
will  not  swear.’  The  narrator  went  on  swearing:  Johnson  said, 
‘  I  must  again  intreat  you  not  to  swear.’  He  swore  again  : 
Johnson  quitted  the  room5. 


1  For  the  brutality  of  schoolmasters 
of  old  see  Life ,  i.  44,  n.  2;  ii.  144,  n.  2 ; 
146,157.  ‘  There  is  now  less  flogging 
in  our  great  schools  than  formerly, 
but  then  less  is  learned  there  ;  so 
that  what  the  boys  get  at  one  end 
they  lose  at  the  other.’  Life ,  ii.  407. 

2  Ante ,  ii.  11.  It  was  the  affecta¬ 

tion  of  learning  that  he  disliked, 

VOL.  II.  C 


not  the  learning  itself. 

3  Paradise  Lost ,  iv.  297. 

4  Molly  Aston.  Ante ,  i.  255. 

5  ‘  Davies  reminded  Dr.  J ohnson  of 
Mr.  Murphy’s  having  paid  him  the 
highest  compliment  that  ever  was 
paid  to  a  layman,  by  asking  his  par¬ 
don  for  repeating  some  oaths  in  the 
course  of  telling  a  story.’  Life ,  iii.  40. 

He 


i8 


Apophthegms,  Sentiments 


He  was  no  great  friend  to  puns,  though  he  once  by  accident 
made  a  singular  one.  A  person  who  affected  to  live  after  the 
Greek  manner,  and  to  anoint  himself  with  oil,  was  one  day 
mentioned  before  him.  Johnson,  in  the  course  of  conversation 
on  the  singularity  of  his  practice,  gave  him  the  denomination  of, 
This  man  of  Greece ,  or  grease ,  as  you  please  to  take  it x. 

Of  a  member  of  parliament,  who,  after  having  harangued  for 
some  hours  in  the  house  of  commons,  came  into  a  company 
where  Johnson  was,  and  endeavoured  to  talk  him  down,  he  said, 
This  man  has  a  pulse  in  his  tongue. 


He  was  not  displeased  with  a 
who  (after  having  been  tired  to 

‘  Obscenity  and  impiety  (he  said) 
have  always  been  repressed  in  my 
company/  Life ,  iv.  295.  See  also 
ib.  iii.  189. 

Susan  Burney,  sending  her  sister 
a  report  of  a  conversation  at  Streat- 
ham  when  Johnson  was  present,  re¬ 
ports  Mrs.  Thrale  as  crying  out :  — 

‘  Good  G-d  !  why  somebody  else 
mentioned  that  book  to  me.’  Mrs. 
Raine  Ellis,  who  has  edited  Fanny 
Burney’s  Early  Diary  with  great 
skill,  says  in  a  footnote: — ‘  The  care¬ 
less  old  ejaculations  have,  in  almost 
every  case,  been  modified,  or  effaced 
in  the  manuscripts  of  the  diaries,  old 
and  new;  in  many  cases  by  Mme. 
D’Arblay  herself,  in  more  by  her 
niece,  who  was  the  editor  of  her 
later  diaries.  These  almost  unmean¬ 
ing  expletives  seem  to  have  passed 
unrebuked  by  Dr.  Johnson  in  the 
case  of  Mrs.  Thrale,  although  he 
would  not  suffer  Boswell  to  write 
“  by  my  soul.”  [‘  My  illustrious 
friend  said,  “  It  is  very  well,  Sir;  but 
you  should  not  swear.” 5  Life ,  ii. 
in.]  His  ear  had  become  used  to 
them,  or  she  was  incorrigible.’  Early 
Diary  of  F.  Burney ,  ii.  234. 

1  ‘Johnson  had  a  great  contempt 
for  that  species  of  wit.’  Life,  ii.  241. 
Boswell,  recording  a  pun  by  John- 


kind  of  pun  made  by  a  person, 
death  by  two  ladies  who  talked 

son,  says: — ‘It  was  the  first  time 
that  I  knew  him  stoop  to  such  sport.’ 
Lb.  iii.  325.  In  his  Dictionary ,  he 
defines  punster  as  a  low  wit ,  who 
endeavours  at  reputation  by  double 
7Jieaning. 

Dryden,  after  quoting  Horace’s 
pun  on  ‘  Mr.  King  ’  ( Satires ,  i.  7.  35), 
continues  : — ‘  But  it  may  be  puns 
were  then  in  fashion,  as  they  were 
wit  in  the  sermons  of  the  last  age 
and  in  the  Court  of  King  Charles  II.’ 
Scott’s  Dryderis  Works ,  xiii.  97. 

‘  A  great  Critic  formerly  held  these 
clenches  in  such  abhorrence  that  he 
declared  “  he  that  would  pun  would 
pick  a  pocket.”  Yet  Mr.  Dennis’s 
works  afford  us  notable  examples  in 
this  kind.’  The  Dunciad ,  2nd  ed.  i. 
6\,n.  Shaftesbury  wrote  in  1714 : — 
‘All  Humour  had  something  of  the 
Quibble.  The  very  Language  of  the 
Court  was  Punning.  But  ’tis  now 
banish’d  the  Town  and  all  Good 
Company.  There  are  only  some  few 
Footsteps  of  it  in  the  Country  ;  and  it 
seems  at  last  confin’d  to  the  Nurserys 
of  Youth,  as  the  chief  Entertain¬ 
ment  of  Pedants  and  their  Pupils.’ 
Characteristicks ,  ed.  1714,  i.  64. 

‘  I  never  knew  an  enemy  to  puns 
who  was  not  an  ill-natured  man.’ 
Lamb’s  Letters ,  ed.  1888,  ii.  148. 


of 


Opinions ,  and  Occasional  Reflections. 


19 


of  the  antiquity  and  illustriousness  of  their  families,  himself  being 
quite  a  new  man)  cried  out,  with  the  ghost  in  Hamlet, 

- ‘  This  eternal  blazon 

Must  not  be  to  ears  of  flesh  and  blood1.’ 


One  who  had  long  known  Johnson,  said  of  him,  In  general  you 
may  tell  what  the  man  to  whom  you  are  speaking  will  say  next : 
this  you  can  never  do  of  Johnson:  his  images,  his  allusions,  his 
great  powers  of  ridicule  throw  the  appearance  of  novelty  upon 
the  most  common  conversation 2. 


He  was  extremely  fond  of  Dr.  Hammond’s  Works 3,  and  some¬ 
times  gave  them  as  a  present  to  young  men  going  into  orders  : 
he  also  bought  them  for  the  library  at  Streatham. 

Whoever  thinks  of  going  to  bed  before  twelve  o’clock,  said 
Johnson,  is  a  scoundrel: — having  nothing  in  particular  to  do 
himself,  and  having  none  of  his  time  appropriated,  he  was 
a  troublesome  guest  to  persons  who  had  much  to  do 4. 

He  rose  as  unwillingly  as  he  went  to  bed  5. 

He  said,  he  was  always  hurt  when  he  found  himself  ignorant 
of  any  thing 6. 

He  was  extremely  accurate  in  his  computation  of  time  7.  He 
could  tell  how  many  heroick  Latin  verses  could  be  repeated  in 
such  a  given  portion  of  it ;  and  was  anxious  that  his  friends 
should  take  pains  to  form  in  their  minds  ..some  measure  for 
estimating  the  lapse  of  it. 

Of  authors  he  used  to  say,  that  as  they  think  themselves  wiser 
or  wittier  than  the  rest  of  the  world,  the  world,  after  all,  must 
be  the  judge  of  their  pretensions  to  superiority  over  them  8. 


1  Hamlet,  Act  i.  sc.  5.  1.  21. 

2  W.  G.  Hamilton  said  of  him : — 
‘  He  has  made  a  chasm  which  not 
only  nothing  can  fill  up,  but  which 
nothing  has  a  tendency  to  fill  up. 
Johnson  is  dead.  Let  us  go  to  the 
next  best  : — there  is  nobody  ;  no 
man  can  be  said  to  put  you  in  mind 
of  Johnson.’  Life ,  iv.  420. 

3  Ante ,  i.  107,  and  Life ,  iii.  58. 

4  Ante ,  i.  231.  5  Ante,  i.  340. 

6  ‘He  observed,  “All  knowledge 

is  of  itself  of  some  value.  There  is 


nothing  so  minute  or  inconsiderable, 
that  I  would  not  rather  know  it  than 
not.’”  Life,  ii.  357.  Reynolds  wrote 
of  him  : — ‘  He  sometimes,  it  must  be 
confessed,  covered  his  ignorance  by 
generals  rather  than  appear  ignorant.’ 
Taylor’s  Reynolds,  ii.  457. 

7  Life,  i.  72. 

8  ‘  He  had  indeed,  upon  all  occa¬ 
sions,  a  great  deference  for  the 
general  opinion  :  “  A  man  (said  he) 
who  writes  a  book,  thinks  himself 
wiser  or  wittier  than  the  rest  of  man- 

C  2  Complainers 


20 


Apophthegms ,  Sentiments ,  Opinions ,  &c. 


Complainers,  said  he,  are  always  loud  and  clamorous  *. 

He  thought  highly  of  Mandeville’s  Treatise  on  the  Hypochron - 
driacal  Disease 2. 

He  would  not  allow  the  verb  derange ,  a  word  at  present  much 
in  use,  to  be  an  English  word.  Sir,  said  a  gentleman  who  had 
some  pretensions  to  literature,  I  have  seen  it  in  a  book.  Not  in 
a  bound  book,  said  Johnson  ;  disarrange  is  the  word  we  ought  to 
use  instead  of  it 3. 

He  thought  very  favourably  of  the  profession  of  the  law 4,  and 
said,  that  the  sages  thereof,  for  a  long  series  backward,  had 
been  friends  to  religion.  Fortescue  says,  that  their  afternoon’s 
employment  was  the  study  of  the  Scriptures 5. 


kind  ;  he  supposes  that  he  can  in¬ 
struct  or  amuse  them,  and  the  pub- 
lick  to  whom  he  appeals  must,  after 
all,  be  the  judges  of  his  pretensions.5 
Life ,  i.  200.  See  ante ,  ii.  7. 

1  Ante ,  i.  315. 

2  Treatise  of  Hypochondriack  and 
Hysterick  Passions ,  vulgarly  called 
Hypo  in  Men ,  and  Vapours  in 
Women ,  1711. 

Of  Mandeville’s  Fable  of  the  Bees 
he  said  : — ‘  1  read  Mandeville  forty, 
or  I  believe,  fifty  years  ago.  He  did 
not  puzzle  me  ;  he  opened  my  views 
into  life  very  much.5  Life ,  iii.  292. 
See  also  Hawkins’s  fohnson ,  p.  263. 

3  Neither  derange  nor  disarrange 
is  in  Johnson’s  Dictionary.  Of  de¬ 
range  he  might  have  said  that  it  was 
a  word  ‘  lately  innovated  from 
France  without  necessity.’  Life , 
iii-  343- 

In  a  note  on  ‘  the  wide  arch  of  the 
rang’d  empire,’  in  Antony  and  Cleo¬ 
patra,  Act  i.  sc.  1,  he  says  : — ‘  It  is 
not  easy  to  guess  how  Dr.  Warbur- 
ton  missed  this  opportunity  of  in¬ 
serting  a  French  word  by  reading — 
“  And  the  wide  arch 
Of  derang’d  empire  fall  !  ” — 
Which,  if  deranged  were  an  English 


word,  would  be  preferable  both  to 
raised  and.  ranged?  Johnson’s  Shake¬ 
speare,  ed.  1765,  vii.  107. 

4  Attorneys  apparently  he  did  not 
include  in  the  profession  of  the  law. 
Life,  ii.  126.  He  had  himself  wished 
to  become  a  lawyer.  ‘  Sir  (he  said) 
it  would  have  been  better  that  I  had 
been  of  a  profession.  I  ought  to 
have  been  a  lawyer.’  Ib.  iii.  309. 
See  ib.  i.  134,  for  his  wish  to  practise 
in  Doctors’  Commons. 

5  ‘  Quare  Justiciarii,  postquam  se 
refecerint,  totum  Diei  residuum  per- 
transeunt  studendo  in  Legibus,  sa- 
cram  legendo  Scripturam,  et  aliter 
ad  eorum  Libitum  contemplando,  ut 
Vita  ipsorum  plus  contemplativa  vi- 
deatur  quam  activa.  Sicque  quietam 
illi  Vitam  agunt  ab  omni  Sollici- 
tudine  et  Mundi  Turbinibus  semo- 
tam.’  F ortescue,  De  Laudibus ,  cap. 
Ii. 

‘When  a  lawyer,  a  warm  partisan 
of  Lord  Chancellor  Eldon,  called 
him  one  of  the  pillars  of  the  Church  ; 
“  No,”  said  another  lawyer,  “  he  may 
be  one  of  its  buttresses  ;  but  certain¬ 
ly  not  one  of  its  pillars,  for  he  is 
never  found  within  it.”  ’  Twiss’s 
Life  of  Eldon,  ed.  1844,  iii.  488. 


EXTRACTS 

FROM  JAMES  BOSWELL’S  LETTERS 
TO  EDMOND  MALONE1 


4»  1  ■ 

Dec.  4.  1790.  Let  me  begin  with  myself.  On  the  day  after 
your  departure,  that  most  friendly  fellow  Courtenay 2  (begging 
the  pardon  of  an  M.P.  for  so  free  an  epithet)  called  on  me, 
and  took  my  word  and  honour  that,  till  the  1st  of  March,  my 
allowance  of  wine  per  diem  should  not  exceed  four  good  glasses 
at  dinner,  and  a  pint  after  it 3 :  and  this  I  have  kept,  though 
I  have  dined  with  Jack  Wilkes4;  at  the  London  Tavern,  after 
the  launch  of  an  Indiaman ;  with  dear  Edwards ;  Dilly 5 ;  at 
home  with  Courtenay ;  Dr.  Barrow 6 ;  at  the  mess  of  the  Cold- 


1  Published  in  Croker’s  Boswell , 
x.  209,  from  the  MSS.  in  Mr.  Upcott’s 
collection. 

2  John  Courtenay.  In  the  new 
Parliament  which  met  on  Nov.  25  he 
sat  for  Tam  worth.  For  his  Moral 
and  Literary  Character  of  Dr.  John¬ 
son  see  Life ,  i.  222. 

3  ‘  Under  the  solemn  yew,’  fifteen 
years  earlier,  he  had  promised  his 
friend  Temple  not  to  exceed  a  bottle 
of  old  Hock  a  day.  The  following 
year  he  wrote : — ‘  General  Paoli  has 
taken  my  word  of  honour  that  I  shall 
not  taste  fermented  liquor  for  a  year.’ 
Life ,  ii.  436,  n.  1. 

4  Boswell  complacently  recorded 
in  his  Journal : — ‘  When  Wilkes  and 
I  sat  together,  each  glass  of  wine 
produced  a  flash  of  wit,  like  gun¬ 
powder  thrown  into  the  fire.  Puff! 
puff !  ’  Rogers’s  Boswelliana ,  p.  322. 


5  Charles  Dilly,  Boswell’s  pub¬ 
lisher,  at  whose  house  ‘Johnson 
owned  that  he  always  found  a  good 
dinner.’  Life,  iii.  285. 

6  Boswell  wrote  to  Temple  on 
Nov.  28,  1789  : — ‘My  second  son  is 
an  extraordinary  boy  ;  he  is  much  of 
his  father  (vanity  of  vanities).  .  .  . 
He  is  still  in  the  house  with  me  ; 
indeed  he  is  quite  my  companion, 
though  only  eleven  in  September. 
He  goes  in  the  day  to  the  academy 
in  Soho  Square,  kept  by  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Barrow,  formerly  of  Queen’s, 
Oxford,  a  coarse  north-countryman, 
but  a  very  good  scholar.’  Letters  of 
Boswell,  p.  315. 

Barrow  wrote  to  John  James  on 
Jan.  26,  1786: — ‘The  reviews  and 
papers  will  tell  you  better  than  I  can, 
that  the  booksellers  are  engaged  in 
a  contest  who  shall  publish  the  first 

stream  ; 


22 


Extracts  from  James  BoswelVs  Letters 


stream 1 ;  at  the  Club ;  at  Warren  Hastings  s 2 ;  at  Hawkins 
the  Cornish  member’s 3 ;  and  at  home  with  a  colonel  of  the 
guards,  &c.  This  regulation  I  assure  you  is  of  essential 
advantage  in  many  respects.  The  Magnum  Opus  advances. 
I  have  revised  p.  si 64.  The  additions  which  I  have  received 
are  a  Spanish  quotation  from  Mr.  Cambridge 5 ;  an  account  of 
Johnson  at  Warley  Camp  from  Mr.  Langton6;  and  Johnson’s 
letters  to  Mr.  Hastings — three  in  all7 — one  of  them  long  and 
admirable ;  but  what  sets  the  diamonds  in  pure  gold  of  Ophir 
is  a  letter  from  Mr.  Hastings  to  me,  illustrating  them  and 
their  writer.  I  had  this  day  the  honour  of  a  long  visit  from 
the  late  governor-general  of  India.  There  is  to  be  no  more 


impeachment 8.  But  you  will  see 
Depend  upon  this. 

and  best  edition  of  Johnson’s  Dic¬ 
tionary ,  and  that  his  friends  are 
running  a  race  who  shall  be  foremost 
in  giving,  or  rather  selling,  to  the 
world  some  scrap  or  fragment  of  our 
literary  Leviathan — an  anecdote,  a 
letter,  or  a .  character,  a  sermon,  a 
prayer,  or  a  bon-mot.’  Letters  of 
Radcliffe  and  James ,  p.  266.  ‘  I  do 

not  quite  affect  John’s  friend  Barrow,’ 
wrote  J.  Boucher ;  '  he  seems  too 
rough  and  rugged  a  northern.  He 
would  overawe  me.’  Ib.  p.  267. 

1  The  Coldstream  Guards.  Bos¬ 
well  nearly  thirty  years  earlier  had 
described  his  ‘  fondness  for  the 
Guards.’  Life ,  i.  400. 

2  For  Hastings’s  letter  to  Boswell 
dated  the  2nd  of  this  month  see  ib. 
iv.  66. 

3  Sir  Christopher  Hawkins,  mem¬ 
ber  for  Michell.  W.  P.  Courtney’s 
Pari.  Repres.  of  Cornwall,  p.  319. 

4  Of  the  second  volume. 

5  Life,  iii.  251.  In  another  passage 
(ib.  iv.  195)  Boswell  records  a  con¬ 
versation  between  Cambridge  and 
Johnson  about  a  Spanish  translation 
of  Sallust.  Dr.  Franklin  wrote  to 
W.  Strahan  from  Passy,  on  Dec.  4, 


his  character  nobly  vindicated9. 


1781  : — ‘A  strong  Emulation  exists 
at  present  between  Paris  and  Madrid 
with  regard  to  beautiful  Printing. 
Here  a  M.  Didot  l’aine  has  a  Passion 
for  the  Art,  and  besides  having  pro¬ 
cured  the  best  Types,  he  has  much 
improv’d  the  Press.  The  utmost 
Care  is  taken  of  his  Press-work  ;  his 
Ink  is  black,  and  his  Paper  fine  and 
white.  He  has  executed  several 
charming  Editions.  But  the  Salust 
[sic]  and  the  Don  Quixote  of  Madrid 
are  thought  to  excel  them.’ 

6  Life,  iii.  360. 

7  Ib.  iv.  68. 

8  Boswell’s  hope  was  from  the  new 
Parliament.  ‘  The  friends  of  Hastings 
entertained  a  hope  that  the  new 
House  of  Commons  might  not  be 
disposed  to  go  on  with  the  impeach¬ 
ment.’  Macaulay’s  Essays ,  ed.  1843, 
iii.  455.  Their  hope  was  disappointed. 
Dr.  Burney  wrote  to  his  daughter  on 
May  7,  1795:— 'And  so  dear  Mr. 
Hastings  is  honourably  acquitted ; 
and  I  visited  him  the  next  morning, 
and  we  cordially  shook  hands.’ 
Mme.  D’Arblay’s  Diary,  vi.  36. 

9  In  the  Life  of  Johnson ,  that  is  to 
say.  See  Life,  iv.  66. 


And 


to  Edmond  Malone. 


23 


And  now  for  my  friend.  The  appearance  of  Malone’s  Shake¬ 
speare  on  the  29th  November  was  not  attended  with  any 
external  noise ;  but  I  suppose  no  publication  seized  more 
speedily  and  surely  on  the  attention  of  those  for  whose  critical 
taste  it  was  chiefly  intended1.  At  the  Club  on  Tuesday,  where 
I  met  Sir  Joshua,  Dr.  Warren,  Lord  Ossory2,  Lord  Palmerston3, 
Windham,  and  Burke  in  the  chair, — Burke  was  so  full  of  his 
anti-French  revolution  rage,  and  poured  it  out  so  copiously, 
that  we  had  almost  nothing  else4.  He,  however,  found  time 


1  It  was  published  in  ten  volumes  ; 
‘  in  fifteen  months  a  large  edition  was 
nearly  sold.’  Unfortunately  the  type 
and  paper  were  bad.  Prior’s  Malo?ie, 
p.  168. 

Horace  Walpole  describes  it  as 
‘  the  heaviest  of  all  books,  in  ten 
thick  octavos,  with  notes  that  are  an 
extract  of  all  the  opium  that  is 
spread  through  the  works  of  all  the 
bad  play- wrights  of  that  age  : — mercy 
on  the  poor  gentleman’s  patience.’ 
Letters ,  ix.  326. 

2  It  was  to  Lord  Ossory’s  wife  that 
Horace  Walpole  wrote  so  many  of 
his  letters.  In  a  note  to  the  letter  of 
Feb.  1,  1779  (vji.  169),  the  following 
quotation  is  given  from  Lord  Ossory’s 
Memoranda  : — ‘  In  Italy  I  became 
acquainted  with  Garrick,  and  from 
my  earliest  youth  having  admired 
him  on  the  stage,  was  happy  to  be 
familiarly  acquainted  with  him,  culti¬ 
vated  his  society  from  that  time  till 
his  death,  and  then  accompanied 
him  to  his  grave  as  one  of  his  pall¬ 
bearers.  He  and  Mrs.  Garrick  (I 
think  it  was  in  1777)  have  been  with 
us  in  the  country ;  Gibbon  and 
Reynolds  at  the  same  time,  all  three 
delightful  in  society.  The  vivacity 
of  the  great  actor,  the  keen  sarcastic 
wit  of  the  great  historian,  and  the 
genuine  pleasantry  of  the  great 
painter,  mixed  up  well  together,  and 
made  a  charming  party.  Garrick’s 


mimicry  of  the  mighty  Johnson  was 
excellent.’ 

Reynolds,  by  his  will,  left  Lord 
Ossory  the  first  choice  of  any  picture 
of  his  own  painting.  Taylor’s  Rey¬ 
nolds,  ii.  636. 

3  Lord  Palmerston,  the  father  of 
the  Prime  Minister,  when  proposed 
at  the  Club  in  1783  was,  writes 
Johnson,  ‘against  my  opinion  re¬ 
jected.’  Life ,  iv.  232.  He  was  elected 
a  few  months  later. 

4  Burke,  acknowledging  Malone’s 
gift  of  his  Shakespeare ,  sent  him  his 
Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in 
France.  ‘  You  have  sent  me  gold,’ 
he  wrote,  ‘  which  I  can  only  repay 
you  in  my  brass.’  Prior’s  Malone , 
p.  170. 

Horace  Walpole  wrote  of  Burke’s 
book  {Letters,  ix.  268) : — ‘  Every  page 
shows  how  sincerely  he  is  in  earnest 
— a  wondrous  merit  in  a  political 
pamphlet.  All  other  party  writers 
act  zeal  for  the  public,  but  it  never 
seems  to  flow  from  the  heart.’ 

Burke  told  Malone,  in  Sept.  1791, 
that  18,000  copies  had  been  sold,  and 
12,000  in  Paris  of  the  French  trans¬ 
lation.  Prior’s  Malone,  p.  183. 

Bennet  Langton  told  H.  D.  Best 
that  ‘  Burke  was  rude  and  violent  in 
dispute  ;  instancing,  “  if  any  one  as¬ 
serted  that  the  United  States  were 
in  the  wrong  in  their  quarrel  with 
the  mother  country,  or  that  England 

to 


24 


Extracts  from  James  BoswelVs  Letters 


to  praise  the  clearness  and  accuracy  of  your  dramatic  history ; 
and  Windham  found  fault  with  you  for  not  taking  the  profits 
of  so  laborious  a  work.  Sir  Joshua  is  pleased,  though  he 
would  gladly  have  seen  more  disquisition — you  understand  me ! 
Mr.  Daines  Barrington 1  is  exceedingly  gratified.  He  regrets 
that  there  should  be  a  dryness  between  you  and  Steevens 2,  as 
you  have  treated  him  with  great  respect.  I  understand  that, 
in  a  short  time,  there  will  not  be  one  of  your  books  to  be  had 
for  love  or  money. 

Dec.  7.  I  dined  last  Saturday  at  Sir  Joshua’s  with  Mr.  Burke, 
his  lady,  son,  and  niece,  Lord  Palmerston,  Windham,  Dr. 
Lawrence3,  Dr.  Blagden 4,  Dr.  Burney,  Sir  Abraham  Hume, 
Sir  William  Scott5.  I  sat  next  to  young  Burke  at  dinner, 


had  a  right  to  tax  America,  Burke, 
instead  of  answering  his  arguments, 
would,  if  seated  next  to  him,  turn 
away  in  such  a  manner  as  to  throw 
the  end  of  his  own  tail  into  the  face 
of  the  arguer.”  ’  Personal  and 
Literary  Memorials ,  p.  63.  Burke 
no  doubt  wore  his  hair  tied  up  in  a 
pig-tail. 

1  Barrington  was  not  a  member  of 
the  Literary  Club.  He  had  belonged 
to  Johnson’s  Essex  Head  Club.  Life , 
iv.  254. 

2  Steevens,  five  years  earlier,  had 
taken  offence  at  some  notes  on 
Shakespeare  which  Malone  furnished 
to  Isaac  Reid.  Prior’s  Maloney.  122. 
Malone  wrote  to  Lord  Charlemont 
on  Nov.  15,  1793,  about  Steevens’s 
last  edition  of  Shakespeare  : — ‘  In 
my  new  edition  I  mean  to  throw 
down  the  gauntlet,  not  by  the  hints 
and  hesitations  of  oblique  deprecia¬ 
tion,  as  he  has  on  all  occasions  served 
me  in  his  late  book,  but  by  a  fair  and 
direct  attack.’  Hist.  MSS.  Com., 
Thirteenth  Report,  App.  viii.  221. 

3  Not  Johnson’s  friend,  the  physi¬ 
cian,  who  had  been  dead  some 
years,  but  Dr.  French  Lawrence,  the 


Civilian,  whose  correspondence  with 
Burke  was  published  in  1827. 

4  ‘Talking  of  Dr.  Blagden’s  co¬ 
piousness  and  precision  of  communi¬ 
cation,  Dr.  Johnson  said: — “Blagden, 
Sir,  is  a  delightful  fellow.”  ’  Life,  iv. 
30.  Charlotte  Burney  describes  him 
at  a  Twelfth  Night  Ball  in  1784  as 
‘  too  elegant  to  undergo  the  fatigue 
of  dancing.’  Early  Diary  of  F. 
Burney ,  ii.  316.  Hannah  More 
{Memoirs,  ii.  98)  met  him  at  Mrs. 
Montagu’s  in  1788: — ‘He  is  (she 
wrote)  a  new  blue-stocking  and  a 
very  agreeable  one.  He  is  Secretary 
to  the  Royal  Society.’  Later  on  he 
became  Sir  Charles  Blagden. 

5  To  many  of  these  guests  Sir 
Joshua,  who  died  on  Feb.  23,  1792, 
left  bequests — to  Burke,  £ 2000 ,  with 
the  cancelling  of  a  bond  for  the  same 
amount  borrowed ;  to  young  Burke, 
a  miniature  of  Oliver  Cromwell ;  to 
Lord  Palmerston,  the  second  choice 
of  any  picture  of  his  own  painting ; 
to  Sir  Abraham  Hume,  the  choice  of 
his  Claude  Lorraines ;  and  to  Boswell 
£200  to  be  expended  in  the  purchase 
of  one  of  his  pictures. 

Malone  too,  and  Burke,  as  executors, 

who 


to  Edmond  Malone. 


25 


who  said  to  me,  that  you  had  paid  his  father  a  very  fine 
compliment1,  I  mentioned  Johnson,  to  sound  if  there  was  any 
objection.  He  made  none.  In  the  evening  Burke  told  me  he 
had  read  your  Henry  VI.,  with  all  its  accompaniment,  and  it 
was  exceedingly  well  done.  He  left  us  for  some  time  ;  I  suppose 
on  some  of  his  cursed  politics  ;  but  he  returned — I  at  him  again, 
and  heard  from  his  lips  what,  believe  me,  I  delighted  to  hear, 
and  took  care  to  write  down  soon  after.  ‘  I  have  read  his  History 
of  the  Stage,  which  is  a  very  capital  piece  of  criticism  and 
anti-agrarianism 2.  I  shall  now  read  all  Shakspeare  through, 
in  a  very  different  manner  from  what  I  have  yet  done,  when 
I  have  got  such  a  commentator.’  Will  not  this  do  for  you 
my  friend  ?  Burke  was  admirable  company  all  that  day.  He 
never  once,  I  think,  mentioned  the  French  revolution 3,  and  was 
easy  with  me,  as  in  days  of  old*. 

Dec.  1 6.  I  was  sadly  mortified  at  the  Club  on  Tuesday, 
where  I  was  in  the  chair,  and  on  opening  the  box  found  three 


had  each  the  same  sum  left  for  the 
same  object.  Taylor’s  Reynolds ,  ii. 
636. 

Sir  William  Scott  was  Dr.  Scott 
(Lord  Stowell),  who  with  Reynolds 
and  Hawkins  had  been  Johnson’s 
executor.  He  outlived  this  dinner 
forty-five  years. 

1  ‘  At  length  the  task  of  revising 
these  plays  was  undertaken  by 
one  [Johnson]  whose  extraordinary 
powers  of  mind,  as  they  rendered 
him  the  admiration  of  his  contempo¬ 
raries,  will  transmit  his  name  to  pos¬ 
terity  as  the  brightest  ornament  of 
the  eighteenth  century ;  and  will 
transmit  it  without  competition,  if  we 
except  a  great  orator,  philosopher 
and  statesman  1  now  living,  whose 
talents  and  virtues  are  an  honour  to 
human  nature.’  Malone’s  Shake¬ 
speare,  ed.  1790,  i.  Preface,  p.  68. 


2  Boswell,  I  suppose,  wrote  anti- 
quarianism. 

3  Burke  this  day  never  ‘  thought 
of  convincing,  while  they  thought  of 
dining.’ 

4  In  1783  Boswell  visited  Burke 
at  Beaconsfield.  Life ,  iv.  210.  A 
few  weeks  later  he  wrote : — ‘  I  men¬ 
tioned  my  expectations  from  the 
interest  of  an  eminent  person  then  in 
power’  (no  doubt  Burke).  Ib.  p.  223. 
On  May  28,  1794,  Malone  wrote  of 
the  Club : — ‘We  are  now  so  distracted 
by  party  there,  in  consequence  of 
Windham  and  Burke,  and  I  might 
add  the  whole  nation,  being  on  one 
side,  and  Fox  and  his  little  phalanx 
on  the  other,  that  we  in  general  keep 
as  clear  of  politics  as  we  can,  and 
did  so  yesterday.’  Hist.  MSS- 
Com.,  Thirteenth  Report,  App.  viii. 
239- 


1  The  Right  Honourable  Edmund  Burke.  Note  by  Malone. 


balls 


26  Extracts  from  James  Boswell* s  Letters 


balls  against  General  Burgoyne  *.  Present,  besides  moi,  Lord 
Ossory,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Sir  Joseph  Banks ,  Dr.  Fordyce, 
Dr.  Burney,  young  Burke,  Courtenay,  Steevens.  One  of  the 
balls,  I  do  believe,  was  put  into  the  no  side  by  Fordyce  by 
mistake2.  You  may  guess  who  put  in  the  other  two.  The 
Bishop  of  Carlisle  and  Dr.  Blagden  are  put  up  3.  I  doubt  if 
the  latter  will  be  admitted,  till  Burgoyne  gets  in  first4.  My 
work  has  met  with  a  delay  for  a  little  while — not  a  whole  day, 
however — by  an  unaccountable  neglect  in  having  paper  enough 
in  readiness.  I  have  now  before  me  p.  256.  My  utmost  wish 
is  to  come  forth  on  Shrove  Tuesday  (8th  March) 5.  ‘  Wits  are 

game  cocks,’  &c.  Langton  is  in  town,  and  dines  with  me 
to-morrow  quietly,  and  revises  his  Collectanea 6. 

Jan.  18.  1791.  I  have  been  so  disturbed  by  sad  money- 

matters,  that  my  mind  has  been  quite  fretful :  500 1.  which  I 


1  For  his  defeat  at  Saratoga,  see 
Life ,  iii.  355.  My  friend,  Mr.  E.  L. 
Bigelow,  of  Marlborough,  Mass., 
U.S.A.,  has  Burgoyne’s  folio  Greek 
dictionary,  one  of  the  spoils  of  that 
battle.  Richard  Tickell  celebrates 
his  ‘  manly  sense.’  lb.  iii.  388  n. 
According  to  Horace  Walpole  ‘  he 
had  written  the  best  modern  comedy.’ 
Letters ,  ix.  96. 

2  Dr.  George  Fordyce.  For  an  anec¬ 
dote  of  his  drinking  see  Life ,  ii.  274. 

3  The  Bishop  (Dr.  John  Douglas, 
*  the  detector  of  quacks  ’)  was  elected 
on  May  22,  1792  (he  was  at  that 
time  Bishop  of  Salisbury),  and  Dr. 
Blagden  on  March  18, 1794.  Croker’s 
Boswell ,  ii.  327. 

A  It  was  no  easy  matter  to  get  into 
the  Club.  ‘  When  Bishops  and  Chan¬ 
cellors,’  wrote  William  Jones  in  1780, 
‘  honour  us  by  offering  to  dine  with 
us  at  a  tavern,  it  seems  very  extra¬ 
ordinary  that  we  should  ever  reject 
such  an  offer.’  Life  of  Sir  W.  Jones, 
p.  240. 

Malone  wrote  to  Lord  Charlemont 


on  April  5,  1779  : — ‘  I  have  lately 
made  two  or  three  attempts  to  get 
into  your  club,  but  have  not  yet  been 
able  to  succeed — though  I  have 
some  friends  there — Johnson,  Burke, 
Steevens,  Sir  J.  Reynolds  and  Marlay. 
At  first  they  said,  I  think,  they 
thought  it  a  respect  to  Garrick’s 
memory  [see  Life,  i.  481,  n.  3]  not 
to  elect  any  one  for  some  time  in 
his  room.’  Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Twelfth 
Report,  App.  x.  344.  He  was  elected 
on  Feb.  5,  1782.  Croker’s  Boswell, 
ed.  1844,  ii.  327. 

‘  In  the  height  of  revolutionary 
proceedings  in  France,  Rogers,  not 
at  all  reserved  in  giving  full  swing 
to  Whig  opinions  of  the  day,  came 
forward  as  candidate  for  the  Club, 
and  was  black-balled.  This  he  at¬ 
tributed  to  Malone.’  Prior’s  Malone, 
p.  204. 

s  Reynolds  wrote  to  Malone  on 
this  day  : — ‘  To-day  is  Shrove  Tues¬ 
day,  and  no  Johnson.’  Prior’s  Malone, 

p.  174. 

6  Life,  iv.  1. 


borrowed 


to  Edmond  Malone. 


27 


borrowed  and  lent  to  a  first  cousin,  an  unlucky  captain  of  an 
Indiaman,  were  due  on  the  15th  to  a  merchant  in  the  city. 
I  could  not  possibly  raise  that  sum,  and  was  apprehensive  of 
being  hardly  used.  He,  however,  indulged  me  with  an  allowance 
to  make  partial  payments;  150 /.  in  two  months,  150/.  in  eight 
months,  and  the  remainder,  with  the  interests,  in  eighteen 
months.  How  I  am  to  manage  I  am  at  a  loss,  and  I  know 
you  cannot  help  me.  So  this,  upon  my  honour,  is  no  hint. 
I  am  really  tempted  to  accept  of  the  1000/.  for  my  Life  of 
Johnson.  Yet  it  would  go  to  my  heart  to  sell  it  at  a  price 
which  I  think  much  too  low.  Let  me  struggle  and  hope. 
I  cannot  be  out  on  Shrove  Tuesday ,  as  I  flattered  myself.  P.  376. 
of  Vol.  II.  is  ordered  for  press,  and  I  expect  another  proof 
to-night.  But  I  have  yet  near  200  pages  of  copy  besides  letters, 
and  the  death ,  which  is  not  yet  written.  My  second  volume 
will,  I  see,  be  forty  or  fifty  pages  more  than  my  first.  Your 
absence  is  a  woful  want  in  ,all  respects.  You  will,  I  dare  say, 
perceive  a  difference  in  the  part  which  is  revised  only  by  myself, 
and  in  which  many  insertions  will  appear.  My  spirits  are  at 
present  bad :  but  I  will  mention  all  I  can  recollect. 

Jan.  29.  1791.  You  will  find  this  a  most  desponding  and 
disagreeable  letter,  for  which  I  ask  your  pardon.  But  your 
vigour  of  mind  and  warmth  of  heart  make  your  friendship  of 
such  consequence,  that  it  is  drawn  upon  like  a  bank.  I  have, 
for  some  weeks,  had  the  most  woful  return  of  melancholy, 
insomuch  that  I  have  not  only  had  no  relish  of  any  thing,  but 
a  continual  uneasiness,  and  all  the  prospect  before  me  for  the 
rest  of  life  has  seemed  gloomy  and  hopeless.  The  state  of  my 
affairs  is  exceedingly  embarrassed.  I  mentioned  to  you  that 
the  500/.  which  I  borrowed  several  years  ago,  and  lent  to  a  first 
cousin,  an  unfortunate  India  captain,  must  now  be  paid  ;  150/. 
on  the  1 8th  of  March,  150/.  on  the  18th  of  October,  and 
257/.  15^.  6d.  on  the  18th  of  July,  1792.  This  debt  presses 
upon  my  mind,  and  it  is  uncertain  if  I  shall  ever  get  a  shilling 
of  it  again.  The  clear  money  on  which  I  can  reckon  out  of 
my  estate  is  scarcely  900/.  a  year.  What  can  I  do  ?  My  grave 
brother  urges  me  to  quit  London,  and  live  at  my  seat  in  the 

country  ; 


28  Extracts  from  James  BoswelVs  Letters 


country;  where  he  thinks  that  I  might  be  able  to  save  so  as 
gradually  to  relieve  myself.  But,  alas !  I  should  be  absolutely 
miserable.  In  the  mean  time,  such  are  my  projects  and  sanguine 
expectations,  that  you  know  I  purchased  an  estate  which  was 
given  long  ago  to  a  younger  son  of  our  family,  and  came  to 
be  sold  last  autumn,  and  paid  for  it  2500/. — 1 500/.  of  which 
I  borrow  upon  itself  by  a  mortgage.  But  the  remaining  icoo /. 
I  cannot  conceive  a  possibility  of  raising,  but  by  the  mode  of 
annuity  ;  which  is,  I  believe,  a  very  heavy  disadvantage.  I  own 
it  was  imprudent  in  me  to  make  a  clear  purchase  at  a  time 
I  was  sadly  straitened ;  but  if  I  had  missed  the  opportunity, 
it  never  again  would  have  occurred,  and  I  should  have  been 
vexed  to  see  an  ancient  appanage,  a  piece  of,  as  it  were,  the 
flesh  and  blood  of  the  family,  in  the  hands  of  a  stranger.  And 
now  that  I  have  made  the  purchase,  I  should  feel  myself  quite 
despicable  should  I  give  it  up. 

In  this  situation,  then,  my  dear  Sir,  would  it  not  be  wise  in 
me  to  accept  of  1000  guineas  for  my  Life  of  Johnson,  supposing 
the  person  who  made  the  offer  should  now  stand  to  it,  which 
I  fear  may  not  be  the  case  ;  for  two  volumes  may  be  considered 
as  a  disadvantageous  circumstance?  Could  I  indeed  raise  1000/. 
upon  the  credit  of  the  work,  I  should  incline  to  game ,  as  Sir 
J oshua  says  1 ;  because  it  may  produce  double  the  money,  though 
Steevens  kindly  tells  me  that  I  have  over-printed,  and  that  the 
curiosity  about  Johnson  is  now  only  in  our  own  circle2.  Pray 
decide  for  me ;  and  if,  as  I  suppose,  you  are  for  my  taking 
the  offer,  inform  me  with  whom  I  am  to  treat.  In  my  present 
state  of  spirits,  I  am  all  timidity.  Your  absence  has  been 
a  severe  stroke  to  me.  I  am  at  present  quite  at  a  loss  what 
to  do.  Last  week  they  gave  me  six  sheets 3.  I  have  now 
before  me  in  proof  p.  456 4 :  yet  I  have  above  100  pages  of 
my  copy  remaining,  besides  his  death ,  which  is  yet  to  be  written, 


1  Perhaps  gamble,  a  word  not  in 
Johnson’s  Dictionary  (where  gam¬ 
bler ,  though  given,  is  called  ‘  a  cant 
word  ’),  was  in  common  use,  and 
Reynolds  was  singular  in  sticking  to 
an  old-fashioned  word. 


2  For  Steevens’s  malignancy  see 
Life ,  iii.  281. 

3  48  pages,  as  the  first  edition  was 
in  quarto. 

4  Vol.  iii.  p.  223  of  my  edition. 


and 


to  Edmond  Malone. 


29 


and  many  insertions,  were  there  room,  as  also  seven-and-thirty 
letters,  exclusive  of  twenty  to  Dr.  Brocklesby,  most  of  which 
will  furnish  only  extracts.  I  am  advised  to  extract  several  of 
those  to  others,  and  leave  out  some ;  for  my  first  volume  makes 
only  516  pages,  and  to  have  600  in  the  second  will  seem 
awkward,  besides  increasing  the  expense  considerably  L  The  coun¬ 
sellor ,  indeed,  has  devised  an  ingenious  way  to  thicken  the  first 
volume,  by  prefixing  the  index.  I  have  now  desired  to  have  but 
one  compositor.  Indeed,  I  go  sluggishly  and  comfortlessly  about 
my  work.  As  I  pass  your  door  I  cast  many  a  longing  look. 

I  am  to  cancel  a  leaf  of  the  first  volume,  having  found  that 
though  Sir  Joshua  certainly  assured  me  he  had  no  objection 
to  my  mentioning  that  Johnson  wrote  a  dedication  for  him,  he 
now  thinks  otherwise.  In  that  leaf  occurs  the  mention  of 
Johnson  having  written  to  Dr.  Leland,  thanking  the  University 
of  Dublin  for  their  diploma 2.  What  shall  I  say  as  to  it  ? 


1  It  contained  588  pages. 

2  The  cancel  came  on  vol.  i.  p.  272 
of  the  first  edition.  In  the  second 
edition  a  change  was  made  in  the 
order  of  the  paragraphs,  by  which 
Dr.  Leland  and  the  Dedications  were 
separated  by  ten  pages.  In  my 
edition  Dr.  Leland  is  found  on  vol.  i. 
p.  489,  and  the  Dedications  on  vol.  ii. 
p.  I.  By  the  kindness  of  my  friend, 
Mr.  R.  B.  Adam,  of  Buffalo,  who  has 
in  his  collection  the  proof-sheets  of 
the  Life ,  with  Boswell’s  autograph 
corrections,  I  am  able  to  give  the 
passage  as  it  first  stood.  It  ran  as 
follows:  — ‘He  furnished  his  friend, 
Dr.  Percy,  now  Bishop  of  Dromore, 
with  a  Dedication  to  the  Countess  of 
Northumberland,  which  was  prefixed 
to  his  collection  of  “  Reliques  of 
ancient  English  Poetry,”  in  which 
he  pays  compliments  to  that  most 
illustrious  family  in  the  most  courtly 
style.  It  should  not  be  wondered  at, 
that  one  who  can  himself  write  so 
well  as  Dr.  Percy  should  accept  of 
a  Dedication  from  Johnson’s  pen; 
for  as  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  who  we 


shall  see  afterwards  accepted  of  the 
same  kind  of  assistance,  well  observed 
to  me,  “  Writing  a  dedication  is  a 
knack.  It  is  like  writing  an  advertise¬ 
ment.” 

‘  In  this  art  no  man  excelled  Dr. 
Johnson.  Though  the  loftiness  of 
his  mind  prevented  him  from  ever 
dedicating  in  his  own  person,  he 
wrote  a  great  number  of  Dedications 
for  others.  After  all  the  diligence  I 
have  bestowed,  some  of  them  have 
escaped  my  inquiries.  He  told  me 
he  believed  he  had  dedicated  to  all 
the  Royal  Family  round.’ 

Advertisement  in  the  above  passage 
is  not  used  in  its  modern  sense.  What 
we  should  call  the  Prefaces  to  the 
first  and  second  edition  of  the  Life, 
Boswell  calls  the  Advertisements. 
For  the  Advertise?7ients  which  John¬ 
son  had  intended  for  the  English 
Poets,  see  Life,  iv.  35  n. 

Percy,  in  later  editions  of  the 
Reliques ,  suppressed  the  Dedication. 
He  wrote  to  Dr.  Anderson: — ‘Though 
not  wholly  written  by  Dr.  Johnson,  it 
owed  its  finest  strokes  to  his  pen,  and 

I  have 


30  Extracts  from  James  Boswell's  Letters 


I  have  also  room  to  state  shortly  the  anecdote  of  the  college 
cook x,  which  I  beg  you  may  get  for  me.  I  shall  be  very 
anxious  till  I  hear  from  you. 

Having  harassed  you  with  so  much  about  myself,  I  have 
left  no  room  for  any  thing  else.  We  had  a  numerous  club 
on  Tuesday:  Fox  in  the  chair,  quoting  Homer  and  Fielding, 
&c.  to  the  astonishment  of  Jo.  Warton2;  who,  with  Langton 
and  Seward,  eat  a  plain  bit  with  me,  in  my  new  house,  last 
Saturday.  Sir  Joshua  has  put  up  Dr.  Lawrence,  who  will  be 
blackballed  as  sure  as  he  exists 3. 

We  dined  on  Wednesday  at  Sir  Joshua’s;  thirteen  without 
Miss  P. 4  Himself,  Blagden,  Batt5,  [Lawrence6,]  Erskine7, 
Langton,  Dr.  Warton,  Metcalfe8,  Dr.  Lawrence,  his  brother, 
a  clergyman,  Sir  Charles  Bunbury9,  myself. 


I  could  not  any  longer  allow  myself 
to  strut  in  borrowed  feathers.’  Ander¬ 
son’s  Johnson,  ed.  1815,  p.  309. 

1  This,  no  doubt,  is  explained  by 
the  following  correspondence  between 
Malone  and  Lord  Charlemont.  Ma¬ 
lone  wrote  on  Nov.  7,  1787  : — ‘  Dr. 
Johnson  very  kindly  wrote  to  some 
man  who  was  employed  in  the  College 
kitchen  [Trinity  College,  Dublin]  who 
had  a  mind  to  breed  his  son  a  scholar, 
and  wrote  to  Johnson  for  advice. 
Perhaps  Dr.  J.  Kearney  could  recover 
this.’  Charlemont  replied  : — ‘  The 
letter  to  an  officer  in  the  College 
kitchen  is  well  remembered,  and 
John  Kearney  has  promised,  if  pos¬ 
sible,  to  find  it,  though  he  seems 
almost  to  despair.’  Two  days  later 
he  wrote  : — ‘  The  other  letter  is,  I 
fear,  absolutely  irrecoverable,  as  no 
trace  can  be  found  of  any  papers  be¬ 
longing  to  the  College  steward,  who 
has  long  since  been  dead.’  Hist. 
MSS.  Com.,  Thirteenth  Report,  App. 
viii.  62,  3,  5. 

2  Why  Warton  should  have  been 
astonished  is  not  clear.  He  had  been 
a  member  of  the  Club  for  nearly 
fourteen  years,  and  so  was  likely  to 


have  met  F ox  and  learnt  that  he  was 
a  scholar. 

3  Dr.  Lawrence  was  black-balled, 
and  did  not  become  a  member  of  the 
Club  till  December,  1802.  Croker. 

4  Sir  Joshua’s  niece,  Miss  Palmer. 
For  the  dinners  which  he  gave,  see 
Life,  iii.  375  n. ;  iv.  312  n. 

5  Thomas  Batt,  who  in  1789  was 
one  of  the  Commissioners  for  audit¬ 
ing  the  Public  Accounts.  Walpole’s 
Letters,  ix.  181  n. 

When  Miss  Burney  escaped  from 
her  Court  servitude  she  met  him  at 
a  party.  ‘  “  How  I  rejoice,”  he  cried, 
“  to  see  you  at  length  out  of  thral¬ 
dom  !  ”  “Thraldom?”  quoth  I, 
“  that’s  rather  a  strong  word  !  ”  ’ 
Mme.  D’Arblay’s  Diary,  v.  270. 

6  Croker  inserts  this  name,  appa¬ 
rently  to  complete  the  thirteen,  but 
Dr.  Lawrence’s  brother  is  included 
in  Boswell’s  list. 

7  Afterwards  Lord  Chancellor. 
Life ,  ii.  173. 

8  Philip  Metcalfe,  one  of  Reynolds’s 
executors.  Lb.  iv.  159,  n.  2. 

9  The  brother  of  H.  W.  Bunbury, 
the  caricaturist.  Ib.  ii.  274.  Sir 
Charles  was  the  only  man  of  heredi- 

Feb. 


to  Edmond  Malone. 


31 


Feb.  io.  1791.  Yours  of  the  5th  reached  me  yesterday. 
I  instantly  went  to  the  Don,  who  purchased  for  you  at  the 
office  of  Hazard  and  Co.  a  half,  stamped  by  government  and 
warranted  undrawn,  of  No.  43  m  152.  in  the  English  State 
Lottery.  I  have  marked  on  the  back  of  it  Edward,  Henrietta, 
and  Catherine  Malone,  and  if  Fortune  will  not  favour  those 
three  united,  I  shall  blame  her.  This  half  shall  lie  in  my 
bureau  with  my  own  whole  one,  till  you  desire  it  to  be  placed 
elsewhere.  The  cost  with  registration  is  8/.  1  is.  6d.  A  half  is 
always  proportionally  dearer  than  a  whole.  I  bought  my  ticket 
at  Nicholson’s  the  day  before,  and  paid  1 61.  8j.  for  it1.  I  did 
not  look  at  the  number,  but  sealed  it  up.  In  the  evening 
a  handbill  was  circulated  by  Nicholson,  that  a  ticket  the  day 
before  sold  at  his  office  for  1 61.  8s.  was  drawn  a  prize  for  5000/. 
The  number  was  mentioned  in  the  handbill.  I  had  resolved 
not  to  know  what  mine  was  till  after  the  drawing  of  the  lottery 
was  finished,  that  I  might  not  receive  a  sudden  shock  of  blank ; 
but  this  unexpected  circumstance,  which  elated  me  by  calculating 
that  mine  must  certainly  be  one  of  100,  or  at  most  200  sold 
by  Nicholson  the  day  before,  made  me  look  at  the  two  last 
figures  of  it ;  which,  alas  !  were  48,  whereas  those  of  the  fortunate 
one  were  33.  I  have  remanded  my  ticket  to  its  secrecy.  O  ! 
could  I  but  get  a  few  thousands,  what  a  difference  would  it 
make  upon  my  state  of  mind,  which  is  harassed  by  thinking 
of  my  debts2.  I  am  anxious  to  hear  your  determination  as 


tary  rank  who  attended  Johnson’s 
funeral.  He  married  Lady  Sarah 
Lennox,  with  whom  George  III  had 
been  in  love.  Being  divorced,  she 
married  the  Hon.  George  Napier,  by 
whom  she  was  the  mother  of  Sir 
Charles  Napier,  the  conqueror  of 
Scinde,  and  Sir  William  Napier,  the 
historian.  Walpole’s  Letters ,  iii. 
373  She  died  in  1826 — a  great 
grand-daughter  of  Charles  II.  Top- 
ham  Beauclerk  and  Charles  James 
Fox,  both  of  whom  Johnson  called 
his  friends,  were  descended  from 
Charles  II. 

1  In  the  Table  of  Ways  and  Means 


for  1791  is  entered  on  May  19, 
*  Profit  in  50,000  lottery-tickets  at 
£16.  2.  6  —  ,£306,250.’  Annual 
Register,  1791,  Appendix,  i.  116. 
The  difference  between  £16.  2.  6  and 
£16.  8  was,  I  suppose,  the  dealer’s 
profit.  The  total  sum  paid  at  this 
rate  for  the  tickets  was  £820,000,  of 
which  little  more  than  £500,000 
was  returned  in  prizes,  while  over 
£13,000  went  to  the  dealers. 

2  I  learnt  on  good  authority  at 
Auchinleck  that  Boswell  left  his 
estates  nearly  clear  of  debt,  but  that 
they  became  encumbered  by  his 
son,  Sir  Alexander,  and  his  grand- 

to 


32  Extracts  from  James  Boswell* s  Letters 


to  my  magnum  opus.  I  am  very  unwilling  to  part  with  the 
property  of  it,  and  certainly  would  not,  if  I  could  but  get 
credit  for  1000 /.  for  three  or  four  years.  Could  you  not  assist 
me  in  that  way,  on  the  security  of  the  book,  and  of  an  assign¬ 
ment  to  one  half  of  my  rents,  700/.  which,  upon  my  honour, 
are  always  due,  and  would  be  forthcoming  in  case  of  my  decease  ? 
I  will  not  sell,  till  I  have  your  answer  as  to  this. 

On  Tuesday  we  had  a  Club  of  eleven.  Lords  Lucan  1  (in  the 
chair),  Ossory,  Macartney 2,  Eliot 3,  Bishop  of  Clonfert 4,  young 
Burke,  myself,  Courtenay,  Windham,  Sir  Joshua,  and  Charles 
Fox,  who  takes  to  us  exceedingly,  and  asked  to  have  dinner 
a  little  later ;  so  it  was  to  be  at  past  five.  Burke  had  made 
a  great  interest  for  his  drum-major5,  and,  would  you  believe 
it  ?  had  not  Courtenay  and  I  been  there,  he  would  have  been 
chosen.  Banks  was  quite  indignant,  but  had  company  at  home. 
Lord  Ossory  ventured  to  put  up  the  Bishop  of  Peterborough, 
and  I  really  hope  he  will  get  in.  Courtenay  and  I  will  not 
be  there,  and  probably  not  again  till  you  come.  It  was  poor 
work  last  week,  the  whelp 6  would  not  let  us  hear  Fox  ....  I  am 
strangely  ill,  and  doubt  if  even  you  could  dispel  the  demoniac 


son,  Sir  James  Boswell.  The  popu¬ 
lation  of  Auchinleck  had  risen,  be¬ 
tween  1834  and  1889,  from  1,600  to 
nearly  7,000.  This  rapid  increase 
was  due  to  the  coal  mines  which 
were  opened  about  1854,  and  at  one 
time  added  ^5,000  a  year  to  the 
Boswell  rental. 

1  Life ,  iv.  326. 

2  ‘  Lord  Macartney  (wrote  Boswell 
in  the  Advertisement  to  the  second 
edition  of  the  Life,  i.  13)  favoured  me 
with  his  own  copy  of  my  book,  with 
a  number  of  notes,  of  which  I  have 
availed  myself.  On  the  first  leaf  I 
found  in  his  Lordship’s  hand-writing, 
an  inscription  of  such  high  commen¬ 
dation,  that  even  I,  vain  as  I  am, 
cannot  prevail  on  myself  to  publish 
it.’  I  hope  that  this  volume  will  find 
its  way  into  a  public  library. 

3  It  was  he  of  whom  Johnson  said, 


1  I  did  not  think  a young  Lord  could 
have  mentioned  to  me  a  book  in  the 
English  history  that  was  not  known 
to  me.’  Life ,  iv.  333. 

4  Richard  Marlay,  once  Dean  of 
Ferns  and  afterwards  Bishop  of 
Waterford.  Life,  iv.  73.  On  Jan. 
27,  1782,  he  wrote  to  Lord  Charle- 
mont : — ‘  Our  club  black-balled  lord 
Camden.  This  conduct  should  dis¬ 
grace  the  society.  The  bishop  of  St. 
Asaph  was  once  black-balled,  but  is 
now  elected.  The  club  must  have 
some  wretched  members  belonging 
to  it,  or  the  two  greatest  and  most 
virtuous  characters  in  the  kingdom 
could  not  be  treated  with  such  dis¬ 
respect.’  Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Twelfth 
Report,  App.  x.  396. 

5  Dr.  Lawrence. 

6  Perhaps  young  Burke. 


influence. 


to  Edmond  Malone. 


33 


influence.  I  have  now  before  me  p.  488.  in  print :  the  923 
pages  of  the  copy  only  is  exhausted,  and  there  remains  80, 
besides  the  death ;  as  to  which  I  shall  be  concise,  though 
solemn  ;  also  many  letters.  Pray  how  shall  I  wind  up  ?  Shall 
I  give  the  character  in  my  Tour,  somewhat  enlarged  1  ? 

London,  Feb.  25.  1791.  I  have  not  seen  Sir  Joshua  I  think 
for  a  fortnight.  I  have  been  worse  than  you  can  possibly 
imagine,  or  I  hope  ever  shall  be  able  to  imagine  ;  which  no 
man  can  do  without  experiencing  the  malady.  It  has  been 
for  some  time  painful  to  me  to  be  in  company.  I,  however, 
am  a  little  better,  and  to  meet  Sir  Joshua  to-day  at  dinner 
at  Mr.  Dance’s2,  and  shall  tell  him  that  he  is  to  have  good 
Irish  claret. 

I  am  in  a  distressing  perplexity  how  to  decide  as  to  the 
property  of  my  book.  You  must  know,  that  I  am  certainly 
informed  that  a  certain  person  who  delights  in  mischief  has 
been  depreciating  it 3,  so  that  I  fear  the  sale  of  it  may  be  very 
dubious.  Two  quartos  and  two  guineas  sound  in  an  alarming 
manner.  I  believe,  in  my  present  frame,  I  should  accept  even 
of  50c/.  ;  for  I  suspect  that  were  I  now  to  talk  to  Robinson 4, 
I  should  find  him  not  disposed  to  give  1000/.  Did  he  abso¬ 
lutely  offer  it,  or  did  he  only  express  himself  so  as  that  you 
co7icluded  he  would  give  it  ?  The  pressing  circumstance  is,  that 
I  must  lay  down  1000/.  by  the  1st  of  May,  on  account  of  the 
purchase  of  land,  which  my  old  family  enthusiasm  urged  me 
to  make.  You,  I  doubt  not,  have  full  confidence  in  my  honesty. 
May  I  then  ask  you  if  you  could  venture  to  join  with  me  in 


1  In  the  entry  of  Feb.  10,  1791, 
I  have  followed  the  reprint  of  the 
original  in  Mr.  A.  Morrison’s  Auto¬ 
graphs ,  2nd  series,  i.  375. 

2  There  were  two  painters  of  this 
name,  George  and  Nathaniel.  Tay¬ 
lor’s  Reynolds,  i.  260  ;  ii.  609. 

3  George  Steevens,  no  doubt. 

4  Malone,  writing  on  Nov.  15,  1793, 
about  Mr.  George  Robinson,  who  had 
undertaken  to  publish  a  new  edition 
of  his  Shakespeare,  says  : — ‘  He  is 
unluckily  a  determined  republican. 

VOL.  II. 


In  consequence  of  his  political 
phrenzy,  he  at  this  moment  is  appre¬ 
hensive  of  judgment  being  pro¬ 
nounced  against  him  by  the  King’s 
Bench  for  selling  Paine’s  pamphlet, 
and  may  probably  be  punished  for 
his  zeal  in  the  “  good  old  cause,”  as 
they  called  it  in  the  last  century,  by 
six  months  imprisonment.  I  shall 
not  have  the  smallest  pity  for  him.’ 
Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Thirteenth  Report, 
App.  viii.  222. 


D 


a  bond 


34  Extracts  from  James  BosweWs  Letters 


a  bond  for  that  sum,  as  then  I  would  take  my  chance,  and,  as 
Sir  Joshua  says ,  game  with  my  book?  Upon  my  honour,  your 
telling  me  that  you  cannot  comply  with  what  I  propose  will 
not  in  the  least  surprise  me,  or  make  any  manner  of  difference 
as  to  my  opinion  of  your  friendship.  I  mean  to  ask  Sir  Joshua 
if  he  will  join  ;  for  indeed  I  should  be  vexed  to  sell  my  Magnum 
Opus  for  a  great  deal  less  than  its  intrinsic  value.  I  meant 
to  publish  on  Shrove  Tuesday;  but  if  I  can  get  out  within 
the  month  of  March  I  shall  be  satisfied.  I  have  now,  I  think, 
four  or  five  sheets  to  print,  which  will  make  my  second  volume 
about  575  pages.  But  I  shall  have  more  cancels.  That  nervous 
mortal  W.  G.  H.  is  not  satisfied  with  my  report  of  some 
particulars  which  I  wrote  down  from  his  ow7i  mouth ,  and  is 
so  much  agitated,  that  Courtenay  has  persuaded  me  to  allow 
a  new  edition  of  them  by  H.  himself  to  be  made  at  H/s 
expense  \  Besides,  it  has  occurred  to  me,  that  when  I  mention 
a  literary  fraud ,  by  Rolt  the  historian,  in  going  to  Dublin, 
and  publishing  Akenside’s  Pleasures  of  the  Imagination,  with 
his  own  name2,  I  may  not  be  able  to  authenticate  it,  as  Johnson 


1  W.  G.  H.  was  William  Gerard 
Hamilton.  The  cancel  occurs  at 
vol.  ii.  396  of  the  first  edition  ;  vol.  iv. 
ill  of  mine ;  where,  instead  of  the 
paragraph  which  now  begins,  ‘  One 
of  Johnson’s  principal  talents,’  the 
following  had  stood  : — ‘  His  friend, 
Mr.  Hamilton,  when  dining  at  my 
house  one  day  expressed  this  so  well 
that  I  wrote  down  his  words : — 
“Johnson’s  great  excellence  in  main¬ 
taining  the  wrong  side  of  an  argu¬ 
ment  was  a  splendid  perversion.  If 
you  could  contrive  it  so  as  to  have 
his  fair  opinion  upon  a  subject, 
without  any  bias  from  personal  pre¬ 
judice,  or  from  a  wish  to  con¬ 
quer — it  was  wisdom,  it  was  justice, 
it  was  convincing,  it  was  over¬ 
powering.”  ’ 

The  blank  on  the  next  page  was 
filled  by  Hamilton.  ‘  Mr.  Hamilton,’ 
wrote  Malone,  ‘has  all  his  life  been 
distinguished  for  political  timidity 


and  indecision.’  Prior’s  Malone ,  p. 
418. 

On  Feb.  10  Boswell  wrote  to  Ma¬ 
lone  : — ‘  I  must  have  a  cancelled  leaf 
in  vol.  ii.  [p.  302J  of  that  passage 
where  there  is  a  conversation  as  to 
conjugal  infidelity  on  the  husband’s 
side,  and  his  wife  saying  she  did  not 
care  how  many  women  he  went  to, 
if  he  loved  her  alone,  with  my  pro¬ 
posing  to  mark  in  a  pocket-book, 
every  time  a  wife  refuses,  &c.,  &c. 
I  wonder  how  you  and  I  admitted 
this  to  the  public  eye,  for  Windham, 
&c.  were  struck  with  its  indelicacy, 
and  it  might  hurt  the  book  much. 
It  is  however  mighty  good  stuff.’ 

The  passage  occurs  in  vol.  iii.  p. 
406  of  my  edition,  where  Johnson 
says: — ‘Wise  married  women  don’t 
trouble  themselves  about  the  infi¬ 
delity  in  their  husbands.’ 

2  Life, 1.3  59.  No  change  was  made  ; 
‘  literary  fraud  ’  remains  in  the  text. 


is 


to  Edmond  Malone. 


35 


is  dead,  and  he  may  have  relations  who  may  take  it  up  as 
an  offence,  perhaps  a  libel1-.  Courtenay  suggests,  that  you  may 
perhaps  get  intelligence  whether  it  was  true.  The  Bishop  of 
Dromore2  can  probably  tell,  as  he  knows  a  great  deal  about 
Rolt.  In  case  of  doubt,  should  I  not  cancel  the  leaf,  and  either 
omit  the  curious  anecdote  or  give  it  as  a  story  which  Johnson 
laughingly  told  as  having  circulated  ? 


March  8.  I  have  before  me  your  volunteer  letter  of  February 
24th,  and  one  of  5th  current,  which,  if  you  have  dated  it  right, 
has  come  with  wonderful  expedition.  You  may  be  perfectly 
sure  that  I  have  not  the  smallest  fault  to  find  with  your  dis¬ 
inclination  to  come  again  under  any  pecuniary  engagements  for 
others,  after  having  suffered  so  much.  Dilly  proposes  that  he 
and  Baldwin3  should  each  advance  100I.  on  the  credit  of  my 
book ;  and  if  they  do  so,  I  shall  manage  well  enough,  for 
I  now  find  I  can  have  600/.  in  Scotland  on  the  credit  of  my 


rents ;  and  thus  I  shall  get  the 

1  See  Life ,  iii.  15  for  the  agitation 
of  ‘  the  question,  whether  legal  re¬ 
dress  could  be  obtained,  even  when 
a  man’s  deceased  relation  was  calum¬ 
niated  in  a  publication.’  Johnson 
said,  ‘the  law  does  not  regard  that 
uneasiness  which  a  man  feels  on 
having  his  ancestor  calumniated.’ 

Boswell,  in  a  note  on  this,  says : — 
‘  It  is  held  in  the  books,  that  an 
attack  on  the  reputation  even  of  a 
dead  man  may  be  punished  as 
a  libel,  because  tending  to  a  breach 
of  the  peace.  There  is,  however, 
I  believe,  no  modern  decided  case 
to  that  effect.’ 

‘  Chief  Justice  Mansfield  laid  down 
for  law  that  satires  even  on  dead 
kings  were  punishable.’  Walpole’s 
Memoirs  of  the  Reign  of  George  II, 
iii.  153.  See  also  his  Letters ,  viii. 
533.  Blackstone  makes  no  mention 
of  libels  on  the  dead. 

Antony  k  Wood  was  expelled  from 


1000/.  paid  in  May. 

the  University  of  Oxford,  and  fined 
.£34,  for  libelling  the  memory  of  the 
first  Earl  of  Clarendon.  With  this 
fine  the  statues  at  the  entrance  of 
the  Physic  Garden  were  set  up. 
Bliss’s  Antony  a  Wood, ,  pp.  381-2. 

A  friend  of  mine  travelling  lately 
in  the  East  of  Europe,  found  that 
a  number  of  a  Vienna  newspaper  was 
confiscated,  as  it  contained  an  attack 
on  Maria  Theresa,  who,  like  Socrates, 
‘  has  been  dead  a  hundred  years 
ago.’ 

2  Dr.  Percy. 

3  Boswell,  in  the  ‘Advertisement 
to  the  Second  Edition,’  says  : — ‘May 
I  be  permitted  to  say  that  the  typo¬ 
graphy  of  both  editions  does  honour 
to  the  press  of  Mr.  Henry  Baldwin, 
now  Master  of  the  Worshipful  Com¬ 
pany  of  Stationers,  whom  I  have 
long  known  as  a  worthy  man  and  an 
obliging  friend.’  Life,  i.  10. 

2 


You 


36  Extracts  from  James  Boswell* s  Letters 


You  would  observe  some  stupid  lines  on  Mr.  Burke  in  the 
‘Oracle’  by  Mr.  Boswell !  I  instantly  wrote  to  Mr.  Burke, 
expressing  my  indignation  at  such  impertinence,  and  had  next 
morning  a  most  obliging  answer.  Sir  William  Scott  told  me 
I  could  have  no  legal  redress.  So  I  went  civilly  to  Bell,  and  he 
promised  to  mention  handsomely  that  James  Boswell ,  Esq.  was 
not  the  author  of  the  lines  \  The  note,  however,  on  the  subject 
was  a  second  impertinence.  But  I  can  do  nothing.  I  wish  Fox, 
in  his  bill  upon  libels1  2,  would  make  a  heavy  penalty  the  con¬ 
sequence  of  forging  any  person’s  name  to  any  composition, 
which,  in  reality,  such  a  trick  amounts  to. 

In  the  night  between  the  last  of  February  and  first  of  this 
month,  I  had  a  sudden  relief  from  the  inexplicable  disorder, 
which  occasionally  clouds  my  mind  and  makes  me  miserable 3, 
and  it  is  amazing  how  well  I  have  been  since.  Your  friendly 
admonition  as  to  excess  in  wine  has  been  often  too  applicable ; 
but  upon  this  late  occasion  I  erred  on  the  other  side.  However, 
as  I  am  now  free  from  my  restriction  to  Courtenay 4,  I  shall  be 
much  upon  my  guard  ;  for,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  did  go  too  deep 
the  day  before  yesterday ;  having  dined  with  Michael  Angelo 
Taylor5,  and  then  supped  at  the  London  Tavern  with  the 
stewards  of  the  Humane  Society,  and  continued  till  I  know  not 
what  hour  in  the  morning.  John  Nichols  was  joyous  to  a  pitch 
of  bacchanalian  vivacity.  I  am  to  dine  with  him  next  Monday  ; 
an  excellent  city  party,  Alderman  Curtis,  Deputy  Birch6,  &c. 
&c.  I  rated  him  gently  on  his  saying  so  little  of  your  Shake¬ 
speare7.  He  is  ready  to  receive  more  ample  notice.  You  may 


1  Life ,  i.  190,  n.  4. 

2  On  Feb.  21  Fox  had  given  notice 
that  he  intended  to  bring  before  the 
House  ‘  the  conduct  of  the  Court  of 
King’s  Bench  in  giving  judgment 
and  sentence  upon  libels.’  Pari. 
Hist,  xxviii.  1261. 

3  Life ,  i.  343  ;  iii.  421. 

4  Ante,  ii.  21. 

5  Miss  Burney  complained  to 
Windham  that  her  father  and  M.  A. 

Taylor  ‘  had  been  most  impertinently 

coupled  ’  in  the  Probationary  Odes 


[ed.  1799,  p.  247.  See  also  ib.  p. 
295].  Windham  replied  :  —  ‘  Mr. 
Taylor  is  fair  game  enough,  and 
likes  that  or  any  other  way  whatever 
of  obtaining  notice.’  Mme.  D’Ar- 
blay’s  Diary ,  iv.  139. 

6  ‘  Every  Alderman  has  his  Deputy, 
chosen  out  of  the  Common  Council, 
and  in  some  of  the  wards  that  are 
very  large  the  Alderman  has  two 
Deputies.’  Dodsley’s  London ,  i.  147. 

7  In  the  Gentleman's  Magazine ,  of 
which  Nichols  was  editor. 


depend 


to  Edmond  Malone. 


37 


depend  on  your  having  whatever  reviews  that  mention  you  sent 
directly.  Have  I  told  you  that  Murphy  has  written  An  Essay 
on  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Dr.  Johnson,  to  be  prefixed  to  the 
new  edition  of  his  works?  He  wrote  it  in  a  month,  and  has 
received  loot,  for  it x.  I  am  quite  resolved  now  to  keep  the 
property  of  my  Magnum  Opus ;  and  I  flatter  myself  I  shall  not 
repent  it. 

My  title,  as  we  settled  it,  is  ‘  The  Life  of  Samuel  J ohnson,  LL.D., 
comprehending  an  account  of  his  studies  and  various  works,  in 
chronological  order,  his  conversations  with  many  eminent  persons, 
a  series  of  his  letters  to  celebrated  men,  and  several  original 
pieces  of  his  composition:  the  whole  exhibiting  a  view  of 
literature  and  literary  men  in  Great  Britain,  for  near  half 
a  century,  during  which  he  flourished  2.’  It  will  be  very  kind 
if  you  will  suggest  what  yet  occurs.  I  hoped  to  have  published 
to-day ;  but  it  will  be  about  a  month  yet  before  I  launch. 

March  12.  Being  the  depositary  of  your  chance  in  the  lottery, 
I  am  under  the  disagreeable  necessity  of  communicating  the  bad 
news  that  it  has  been  drawn  a  blank.  I  am  very  sorry,  both  on 
your  account  and  that  of  your  sisters,  and  my  own  ;  for  had 
your  share  of  good  fortune  been  3166/.  i$s.  4 d.  I  should  have 
hoped  for  a  loan  to  accommodate  me.  As  it  is,  I  shall,  as  I  wrote 
to  you,  be  enabled  to  weather  my  difficulties  for  some  time  :  but 
I  am  still  in  great  anxiety  about  the  sale  of  my  book,  I  find 
so  many  people  shake  their  heads  at  the  two  quartos  and  two 
guineas.  Courtenay  is  clear  that  I  should  sound  Robinson,  and 
accept  of  a  thousand  guineas,  if  he  will  give  that  sum.  Mean¬ 
time,  the  title-page  must  be  made  as  good  as  may  be.  It 
appears  to  me  that  mentioning  his  studies,  works,  conversations, 
and  letters  is  not  sufficient ;  and  I  would  suggest  comprehending 
an  account,  in  chronological  order,  of  his  studies,  works,  friend¬ 
ships,  acquaintance,  and  other  particulars ;  his  conversation  with 
eminent  men  ;  a  series  of  his  letters  to  various  persons ;  also 
several  original  pieces  of  his  composition  never  before  published. 

1  He  received  ^300  for  it.  Nichols,  2  This  title  Boswell  somewhat 
Lit.  Anec .,  ix.  159.  modified. 


The 


38  Extracts  from  Boswell3 s  Letters  to  Malone. 


The  whole,  &c.  You  will,  probably,  be  able  to  assist  me  in  ex¬ 
pressing  my  idea,  and  arranging  the  parts.  In  the  advertisement 
I  intend  to  mention  the  letter  to  Lord  Chesterfield,  and  perhaps 
the  interview  with  the  King,  and  the  names  of  the  correspondents 
in  alphabetical  order  *.  How  should  chronological  order  stand  in 
the  order  of  the  members  of  my  title  ?  I  had  at  first  { celebrated 
correspondents l  which  I  don't  like.  How  would  it  do  to  say 
£  his  conversations  and  epistolary  correspondence  with  eminent 
(or  celebrated)  persons?’  Shall  it  be  £ different  works,’  and 
£  various  particulars  ’  ?  In  short,  it  is  difficult  to  decide. 

Courtenay  was  with  me  this  morning.  What  a  mystery  is 
his  going  on  at  all !  Yet  he  looks  well,  talks  well,  dresses  well, 
keeps  his  mare — in  short  is  in  all  respects  like  a  parliament 
man.  Do  you  know  that  my  bad  spirits  are  returned  upon 
me  to  a  certain  degree ;  and  such  is  the  sickly  fondness  for 
change  of  place,  and  imagination  of  relief,  that  I  sometimes 
think  you  are  happier  by  being  in  Dublin,  than  one  is  in  this 
great  metropolis,  where  hardly  any  man  cares  for  another. 
I  am  persuaded  I  should  relish  your  Irish  dinners  very  much. 
I  have  at  last  got  chambers  in  the  Temple,  in  the  very  staircase 
where  J ohnson  lived1  2 ;  and  when  my  Magnum  Opus  is  fairly 
launched,  there  shall  I  make  a  trial 3. 


1  The  advertisement  is  the  pre¬ 
face.  In  it  he  does  not  make  this 
mention. 

2  Letters,  i.  90,  n.  3. 

3  Boswell  wrote  to  Temple  on 
April  6  : — £  My  Life  of  f ohnson  is  at 
last  drawing  to  a  close.  I  am  cor¬ 
recting  the  last  sheet,  and  have  only 
to  write  an  advertisement,  to  make 
out  a  note  of  Errata,  and  to  correct 
a  second  sheet  of  Contents,  one 
being  done.  I  am  at  present  in  such 
bad  spirits  that  I  have  every  fear 
concerning  it, — that  I  may  get  no 


profit,  nay,  may  lose,  —  that  the 
Public  may  be  disappointed,  and 
think  that  I  have  done  it  poorly, — - 
that  I  may  make  many  enemies,  and 
even  have  quarrels.  Yet  perhaps 
the  very  reverse  of  all  this  may  hap¬ 
pen.’  Letters  to  Temple ,  p.  335. 

On  Aug.  22  he  wrote  :  — £  My 
magnum  opus  sells  wonderfully  ; 
twelve  hundred  are  now  gone,  and 
we  hope  the  whole  seventeen  hundred 
may  be  gone  before  Christmas.’  Ib. 
p.  342. 


ANECDOTES 


BY  THE 

REV.  DR.  THOMAS  CAMPBELL 1 


March  nth  [1775].  It  rained  incessantly  from  the  hour 
I  awoke,  that  is,  eight,  till  near  twelve,  that  I  went  to  bed,  and 
how  much  further  that  night,  I  know  not.  This  day  I  dined 
with  the  Club  at  the  British  Coffee  [house]  2,  introduced  by  my 
old  College  friend  Day.  The  President  was  a  Scotch  Member 
of  Parliament,  Mayne,  and  the  prevalent  interest  Scottish.  They 
did  nothing  but  praise  Macpherson’s  new  history3,  and  decry 
Johnson  and  Burke.  Day  humorously  gave  money  to  the 
waiter,  to  bring  him  Johnson’s  Taxation  710  Tyranny .  One  of 
.  them  desired  him  to  save  himself  the  expense,  for  that  he 
should  have  it  from  him,  and  glad  that  he  would  take  it  away, 
as  it  was  worse  than  nothing.  Another  said  it  was  written  in 
Johnson’s  manner,  but  worse  than  usual,  for  that  there  was 
nothing  new  in  it.  , 


1  From  A  Diary  of  a  Visit  to 
England  in  1775.  By  an  Irishman 
(The  Reverend  Dr.  Thomas  Camp¬ 
bell),  with  Notes  by  Samuel  Ray¬ 
mond,  M.A.,  Prothonotary  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  New  South  Wales. 
Sydney:  Waugh  &  Cox,  1854.  For 
the  question  of  the  authenticity  of 
this  Diary  see  Life,  ii.  338,  n.  2.  ‘In 
a  marginal  note  Mrs.  Thrale  says  of 
Dr.  Campbell :  “  He  was  a  fine  showy 
talking  man,  Johnson  liked  him  of 
all  things  in  a  year  or  two.”  ’  Hay¬ 
ward’s  Piozzi ,  2nd  ed.,  i.  99. 

2  Life ,  ii.  195  ;  iv.  179,  n.  1. 


3  ‘  The  History  of  Great  Britain 
from  the  Restoration  to  the  Acces¬ 
sion  of  the  House  of  Hanover.  2  vols. 
quarto,  £2.  2 si  Gent.  Mag.  1775, 
p.  192.  Hume,  writing  to  Strahan, 
described  it  as  ‘  one  of  the  most 
wretched  Productions  that  ever  came 
from  your  Press.’  Letters  of  Hume  to 
Strahan ,  p.  308.  ‘  For  Macpherson,’ 
wrote  Horace  Walpole,  ‘  I  stopped 
dead  short  in  the  first  volume  ; 
never  was  such  a  heap  of  insignifi¬ 
cant  trash  and  lies.’  Walpole’s  Let- 
iers,  vi.  202. 


40 


Anecdotes  by 


14th.  The  first  entire  fair  day,  since  I  came  to  London.  This 
day  I  called  at  Mr.  Thrale’s,  where  I  was  received  with  all 
respect  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thrale.  She  is  a  very  learned  lady  x, 
and  joyns  to  the  charms  of  her  own  sex,  the  manly  understanding 
of  ours.  The  immensity  of  the  Brewery  astonished  me.  One 
large  house  contains,  and  cannot  contain  more,  only  four  store 
vessels,  each  of  which  contains  fifteen  hundred  barrels;  and  in 
one  of  which  one  hundred  persons  have  dined  with  ease1  2.  There 
are  besides  in  other  houses,  thirty  six  of  the  same  construction, 
but  of  one  half  the  contents. 


15th.  A  fair  day.  Dined  with  Archdeacon  Congreve,  to  whom 
Dr.  S.  Johnson  was  schoolfellow  at  Litchfield  3.  The  Doctor  had 
visited  the  Archdeacon  yesterday,  by  which  accident  I  learned 
this  circumstance. 


16th.  A  fair  day.  Dined  with  Mr.  Thrale  along  with  Dr.  John¬ 
son,  and  Baretti.  Baretti  is  a  plain  sensible  man,  who  seems  to 
know  the  world  well.  He  talked  to  me  of  the  invitation  given 
him  by  the  College  of  Dublin,  but  said  it  (one  hundred  pounds 
a  year,  and  rooms,)  was  not  worth  his  acceptance ;  and  if  it  had 
been,  he  said,  in  point  of  profit,  still  he  would  not  have  accepted 
it,  for  that  now  he  could  not  live  out  of  London.  He  had 
returned  a  few  years  ago  to  his  own  country 4,  but  he  could 
not  enjoy  it ;  and  he  was  obliged  to  return  to  London,  to  those 
connections  he  had  been  making  for  near  thirty  years  past.  He 
told  me  he  had  several  families,  with  whom,  both  in  town  and 
country,  he  could  go  at  any  time,  and  spend  a  month :  he  is  at 
this  time  on  these  terms  at  Mr.  Thrale’s,  and  he  knows  how  to 
keep  his  ground.  Talking  as  we  were  at  tea  of  the  magnitude 
of  the  beer  vessels,  he  said  there  was  one  thing  in  Mr.  Thrale’s 
house,  still  more  extraordinary ;  meaning  his  wife.  She  gulped 


1  ‘Her  learning/  said  Johnson, 
‘  is  that  of  a  school-boy  in  one  of  the 
lower  forms.’  Life ,  i.  494. 

2  ‘  Here  is  Thrale  has  a  thousand 

tun  of  copper  (said  Johnson  to  Rey¬ 

nolds)  ;  you  may  paint  it  all  round 
if  you  will,  I  suppose ;  it  will  serve 


him  to  brew  in  afterwards.’  Ante, 
i.  214. 

3  Life ,  i.  45.  Johnson  described 
him  as  ‘  a  very  pious  man,  but  always 
muddy.’  Ib.  ii.  460.  See  also  ib.  ii. 
474  ;  Letters ,  i.  304,  378,  9. 

4  Life,  i.  361. 


the 


the  Rev .  Dr .  Thomas  Campbell. 


4i 


the  pill  very  prettily — so  much  for  Baretti 1 !  Johnson,  you 
are  the  very  man  Lord  Chesterfield  describes : — a  Hottentot 
indeed2,  and  tho'  your  abilities  are  respectable,  you  never  can 
be  respected  yourself.  He  has  the  aspect  of  an  Idiot,  without 
the  faintest  ray  of  sense  gleaming  from  any  one  feature — with  the 
most  awkward  garb,  and  unpowdered  grey  wig,  on  one  side  only 
of  his  head — he  is  for  ever  dancing  the  devil’s  jig,  and  sometimes 
he  makes  the  most  driveling  effort  to  whistle  some  thought  in 
his  absent  paroxisms 3.  He  came  up  to  me  and  took  me  by  the 
hand,  then  sat  down  on  a  sofa,  and  mumbled  out  that  he  had 
heard  two  papers  had  appeared  against  him  in  the  course  of  this 
week — one  of  which  was — that  he  was  to  go  to  Ireland  next 
summer  in  order  to  abuse  the  hospitality  of  that  place  also 4. 
His  awkwardness  at  table  is  just  what  Chesterfield  described, 
and  his  roughness  of  manners  kept  pace  with  that.  When 
Mrs.  Thrale  quoted  something  from  Foster’s  Sermons,  he  flew 
in  a  passion  and  said  that  Foster  was  a  man  of  mean  ability, 
and  of  no  original  thinking 5.  All  which  tho’  I  took  to  be  most 
true,  yet  I  held  it  not  meet  to  have  it  so  set  down.  He  said 
that  he  looked  upon  Burke  to  be  the  author  of  Junius,  and  that 
though  he  would  not  take  him  contra  mundum ,  yet  he  would 
take  him  against  any  man 6.  Baretti  was  of  the  same  mind, 


1  Mrs.  Thrale  thus  ends  some  lines 
she  wrote  on  Baretti : — 

‘  While  tenderness,  temper  and 
truth  he  despises, 

And  only  the  triumph  of  victory 
prizes, 

Yet  let  us  be  candid,  and  where 
shall  we  find 

So  active,  so  able,  so  ardent  a 
mind  ? 

To  your  children  more  soft,  more 
polite  with  your  servant, 

More  firm  in  distress,  or  in  friend¬ 
ship  more  fervent  ?  ’ 

Hayward’s  Piozzi ,  2nd  ed.  ii.  177. 

2  It  was  not  Johnson  that  Chester¬ 
field  described.  Ante ,  i.  384,  451  ; 
Life ,  i.  267,  n.  2. 

3  Life ,  iii.  357. 


4  He  was  charged  with  having 
abused  the  hospitality  of  the  Scotch 
in  his  Journey  to  the  Western  Islands 
just  published.  Life ,  ii.  305.  Of 
Ireland  he  said : — ‘  It  is  the  last 
place  where  I  should  wish  to  travel 
.  .  .  Yet  he  had  a  kindness  for  the 
Irish  nation.’  Ib.  iii.  410. 

5  ‘  Mr.  Beauclerk  one  day  repeated 
to  Dr.  Johnson  Pope’s  lines, 

“Let  modest  Foster,  if  he  will, 
excel 

Ten  metropolitans  in  preaching 
well  ” ; 

then  asked  the  Doctor,  “Why  did 
Pope  say  this?”  Johnson.  “Sir, 
he  hoped  it  would  vex  somebody.”  1 
Ib.  iv.  9. 

6  ‘J0HNS0N-  “I  should  have  be- 

tho’ 


42 


Anecdotes  by 


tho’  he  mentioned  a  fact  which  made  against  the  opinion,  which 
was  that  a  paper  having  appeared  against  Junius,  on  this  day, 
a  Junius  came  out  in  answer  to  that  the  very  next,  when 
(every  body  knew)  Burke  was  in  Yorkshire.  But  all  the  Juniuses 
were  evidently  not  written  by  the  same  hand.  Burke’s  brother 
is  a  good  writer,  tho’  nothing  like  Edward  \sic\.  The  Doctor  as 
he  drinks  no  wine,  retired  soon  after  dinner,  and  Baretti,  who  I  see 
is  a  sort  of  literary  toad-eater  to  Johnson,  told  me  that  he  was 
a  man  nowise  affected  by  praise  or  dispraise T,  and  that  the 
journey  to  the  Hebrides  would  never  have  been  published  but 
for  himself.  The  Doctor  however  returned  again,  and  with  all 
the  fond  anxiety  of  an  author,  I  saw  him  cast  out  all  his  nets  to 
know  the  sense  of  the  town  about  his  last  pamphlet,  Taxation 
no  Tyranny ,  which  he  said  did  not  sell 2.  Mr.  Thrale  told  him 
such  and  such  members  of  both  houses  admired  it,  and  why  did 
you  not  tell  me  this,  quoth  Johnson3.  Thrale  asked  him  what 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  said  of  it.  Sir  Joshua,  quoth  the  Doctor, 
has  not  read  it.  I  suppose,  quoth  Thrale,  he  has  been  very  busy 
of  late ;  no,  says  the  Doctor,  but  I  never  look  at  his  pictures,  so 
he  won’t  read  my  writings.  Was  this  like  a  man  insensible 
to  glory  !  Thrale  then  asked  him  if  he  had  got  Miss  Reynolds’ 
opinion,  for  she  it  seems  is  a  politician ;  as  to  that,  quoth  the 
Doctor,  it  is  no  great  matter,  for  she  could  not  tell  after  she  had 
read  it,  on  which  side  of  the  question  Mr.  Burke’s  speech  was. 
N.B. — We  had  a  great  deal  of  conversation  about  Archdeacon 
Congreve,  who  was  his  class-fellow  at  Litchfield  School.  He 
talked  of  him  as  a  man  of  great  coldness  of  mind,  who  could 
be  two  years  in  London  without  letting  him  know  it  till  a 
few  weeks  ago,  and  then  apologising  by  saying,  that  he  did 
not  know  where  to  enquire  for  him4.  This  plainly  raised  his 


lieved  Burke  to  be  Junius,  because 
I  know  no  man  but  Burke  who  is 
capable  of  writing  these  letters  ;  but 
Burke  spontaneously  denied  it  to 
me.”’  Life ,  iii.  376.  See  ante ,  i.  172. 

1  ‘  He  loved  praise  when  it  was 
brought  to  him  ;  but  was  too  proud 
to  seek  for  it.  He  was  somewhat 
susceptible  of  flattery.’  Life ,  iv.  427. 


2  On  April  2,  ‘his  Taxation  no 
Tyranny  being  mentioned,  he  said, 
“  I  think  I  have  not  been  attacked 
enough  for  it.”  ’  /Aii.335.  Six  days 
later  he  wrote  : — ‘  The  patriots  pelt 
me  with  answers.’  Letters ,  i.  314. 

3  See  Life ,  iv.  32. 

4  Johnson  wrote  to  Dr.  Taylor  on 
Dec.  22,  1774: — ‘How  long  Charles 

indignation 


the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Campbell. 


43 


indignation,  for  he  swelled  to  think  that  his  celebrity  should  not 
be  notorious  to  every  porter  in  the  street.  The  Archdeacon,  he 
told  me,  has  a  sermon  upon  the  nature  of  moral  good  and  evil, 
preparing  for  the  press,  and  should  he  die  before  publication, 
he  leaves  fifty  pounds  for  that  purpose.  He  said  he  read  some 
of  it  to  him,  but  that  as  he  had  interrupted  him  to  make  some 
remarks,  he  hopes  never  to  be  troubled  with  another  rehearsal  \ 


25th.  Eddying  winds  in  the  forenoon  rendered  the  streets 
very  disagreeable  with  dust,  which  was  laid  in  the  evening  by 
rain  from  three.  Dined  at  Mr.  Thrale’s,  where  there  were  ten  or 
more  gentlemen,  and  but  one  lady  besides  Mrs.  Thrale.  The 
dinner  was  excellent 2 :  first  course,  soups  at  head  and  foot 
removed  by  fish  and  a  saddle  of  mutton ;  second  course,  a  fowl 
they  call  Galena  at  head,  and  a  capon  larger  than  some  of  our 
Irish  turkeys  at  foot ;  third  course,  four  different  sorts  of  Ices, 
Pineapple,  Grape,  Raspberry  and  a  fourth  ;  in  each  remove,  there 
were  I  think  fourteen  dishes.  The  two  first  courses  were  served 
in  massy  plate.  I  sat  beside  Baretti,  which  was  to  me  the 
richest  part  of  the  entertainment.  He  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thrale 
joyn’d  in  expressing  to  me  Dr.  Johnson’s  concern  that  he  could 
not  give  me  the  meeting  that  day,  but  desired  that  I  should  go 
and  see  him.  Baretti  was  very  humourous  about  his  new 
publication 3,  which  he  expects  to  put  out  next  month.  He 
there  introduces  a  dialogue  about  Ossian,  wherein  he  ridicules 
the  idea  of  its  double  translation  into  Italian,  in  hopes,  he  said,  of 
having  it  abused  by  the  Scots,  which  would  give  it  an  im¬ 
primatur  for  a  second  edition,  and  he  had  stipulated  for  twenty 
five  guineas  additional  if  the  first  should  sell  in  a  given  time. 
He  repeated  to  me  upon  memory  the  substance  of  the  letters 
which  passed  between  Dr.  Johnson  and  Mr.  McPherson.  The 
latter  tells  the  Doctor,  that  neither  his  age  nor  infirmity’s  should 
protect  him  if  he  came  in  his  way.  The  Doctor  responds  that 


Congreve  has  been  here,  I  know  not. 
He  told  me  he  knew  not  how  to  find 
me.’  Letters ,  i.  304. 

1  ‘He  is  going  to  print  a  sermon, 
but  I  thought  he  appeared  neither 
very  acute  nor  very  knowing.’ 


Letters ,  i.  304.  The  sermon  prob¬ 
ably  was  not  published;  it  is  not 
in  the  British  Museum. 

2  Life,  iii.  423,  n.  1. 

3  Lb.  ii.  449. 


44 


Anecdotes  by 


no  menaces  of  any  rascal  should  intimidate  him  from  detecting 
imposture  wherever  he  met  it x. 

April  ist.  A  fair  day,  dined  at  Mr.  Thrale’s,  whom  in  proof 
of  the  magnitude  of  London,  I  cannot  help  remarking,  no  coach¬ 
man,  and  this  is  the  third  I  have  called,  could  find  without 
enquiry 1  2.  But  of  this  by  the  way.  There  was  Murphy,  Boswell, 
and  Baretti,  the  two  last,  as  I  learned  just  before  I  entered, 
are  mortal  foes,  so  much  so  that  Murphy  and  Mrs.  Thrale 
agreed  that  Boswell  expressed  a  desire  that  Baretti  should  be 
hanged  upon  that  unfortunate  affair  of  his  killing,  &c. 3  Upon 
this  hint  I  went,  and  without  any  sagacity  it  was  easily  dis- 
cernable,  for  upon  Baretti’s  entering,  Boswell  did  not  rise,  and 
upon  Baretti’s  descry  of  Boswell,  he  grinned  a  perturbed  glance. 
Politeness  however  smooths  the  most  hostile  brows,  and  theirs 
were  smoothed.  Johnson  was  the  subject,  both  before  and  after 
dinner,  for  it  was  the  boast  of  all  but  myself,  that  under  that 
roof  were  the  Doctor’s  first  friends.  His  bon  mots  were  retailed 
in  such  plenty,  that  they,  like  a  surfeit,  could  not  lye  upon  my 
memory.  Boswell  arguing  in  favour  of  a  cheerful  glass,  adduced 
the  maxim  in  •vino  veritas ,  ‘well,’  says  Johnson,  ‘and  what  then 
unless  a  man  has  lived  a  lye4 *.’  B.  then  urged  that  it  made 
a  man  forget  all  his  cares,  ‘that,  to  be  sure’  says  Johnson  ‘might 
be  of  use  if  a  man  sat  by  such  a  person  as  you  V  Boswell 
confessed  that  he  liked  a  glass  of  whiskey  in  the  Highland 
tour,  and  used  to  take  it;  at  length  says  Johnson,  ‘  let  me  try 
wherein  the  pleasure  of  a  Scotsman  consists,’  and  so  tips  off 
a  brimmer  of  whiskey6.  But  Johnson’s  abstemiousness  is  new  to 
him,  for  within  a  few  years  he  would  swallow  two  bottles  of  Port 


1  Life ,  ii.  298. 

2  His  town  -  house  was  in  the 
Borough,  on  the  southern  side  of 
the  Thames. 

3  Boswell  coldly  describes  him  as 
‘  an  Italian  of  considerable  literature.’ 
Life ,  i.  302.  He  most  likely  was 

‘the  foreign  friend  of  Johnson’s,  so 

wretchedly  perverted  to  infidelity 

that  he  treated  the  hopes  of  im¬ 
mortality  with  a  brutal  levity.’  Ib. 
ii.  8.  He  also  was  the  ‘  Italian  of 


some  note  in  London  ’  who  wondered 
who  was  the  author  of  the  Pater 
Nos  ter.  Ib.  v.  121.  Boswell’s  ac¬ 
count  of  his  trial  for  murder  is  not 
such  an  account  as  a  friend  would 
have  written.  Ib.  ii.  97. 

4  Ib.  ii.  188  ;  ante ,  i.  321. 

5  Life ,  ii.  193. 

6  ‘  Come  (said  he)  let  me  know 
what  it  is  that  makes  a  Scotchman 
happy.’  Ib.  v.  346. 


without 


the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Campbell. 


45 


without  any  apparent  alteration,  and  once  in  the  company  with 
whom  I  dined  this  day,  he  said,  pray  Mr.  Thrale  give  us  another 
bottle  V  It  is  ridiculous  to  pry  so  nearly  into  the  movements 
of  such  men,  yet  Boswell  carrys  it  to  a  degree  of  superstition. 
The  Doctor  it  appears  has  a  custom  of  putting  the  peel  of 
oranges  into  his  pocket,  and  he  asked  the  Doctor  what  use  he 
made  of  them,  the  Doctor  s  reply  was,  that  his  dearest  friend 
should  not  know  that 2.  This  has  made  poor  Boswell  unhappy, 
and  I  verily  think  he  is  as  anxious  to  know  the  secret  as  a  green 
sick  girl.  N.B.  The  book  wherewith  Johnson  presented  the 
highland  lady  was  Cocker’s  Arithmetic  3. 

Murphy  gave  it  (on  Garrick’s  authority)  that  when  it  was  asked 
what  was  the  greatest  pleasure,  J ohnson  answered  *  *  But  Garrick 
is  his  most  intimate  friend,  they  came  to  London  together  and 
he4  is  very  correct  both  in  his  conduct  and  language ;  as  a  proof 
of  this,  they  all  agreed  in  a  story  of  him  and  Dr.  James 5,  who  is, 
it  seems,  a  very  lewd  fellow,  both  verbo  et  facto.  James,  it  seems, 
in  a  coach  with  his  whoor,  took  up  Johnson,  and  set  him  down 
at  a  given  place  Johnson  hearing  afterwards  what  the  lady  was 
attacked  James,  when  next  he  met  him,  for  carrying  him  about 
in  such  company.  James  apologised  by  saying  *  * .  ‘  Damn  the 
rascal 6,’  says  Johnson,  ‘  he  is  past  sixty  the  *  .’ 

Boswell  desirous  of  setting  his  native  country  off  to  the  best 
advantage  expatiated  upon  the  beauty  of  a  certain  prospect, 
particularly  upon  a  view  of  the  sea.  ‘  O  Sir,’  says  Johnson,  ‘the 
sea  is  the  same  everywhere  1 ! 


1  ‘Talking  of  drinking  wine  John¬ 
son  said,  “  I  did  not  leave  off  wine 
because  I  could  not  bear  it ;  I  have 
drunk  three  bottles  of  port  without 
being  the  worse  for  it.  University 
College  has  witnessed  this.”  ’  Life , 
iii.  245. 

2  It  was  on  the  morning  of  this 
same  day  that  Boswell  received  this 
reply.  Lb.  ii.  330.  See  also  Letters , 
i.  49. 

3  Life ,  v.  138. 

4  Johnson,  not  Garrick,  is  meant. 

5  Lb.  i.  81,  159;  iii.  389,  n.  2. 

6  These  words,  we  may  be  sure, 


were  neither  uttered  by  Johnson,  nor 
reported  of  him  at  a  table  where  his 
aversion  to  profanity  was  known ;  nor 
is  it  at  all  likely  that  he  uttered  any¬ 
thing  which  the  editor  of  Dr.  Camp¬ 
bell’s  Diary  could  not  have  printed. 
Reynolds,  who  knew  him  so  well, 
said  that  ‘  he  would  never  suffer  the 
least  immorality  or  indecency  of  con¬ 
versation  to  proceed  without  a  severe 
check.’  Post  in  Sir  J.  Reynolds’s 
Anecdotes ;  ante,  ii.  17. 

7  Life ,  v.  54. 

Johnson,  in  a  letter  as  printed  by 
Mrs.  Piozzi,  wrote  : — ‘  I  am  glad  that 

Dr. 


46 


Anecdotes  by 


Dr.  Johnson  calls  the  act  in  Braganza 1  with  the  monk,  para- 
lytick  on  one  side ;  i.  e.  the  monk  is  introduced  without  any 
notification  of  his  character,  so  that  any  monk,  or  any  other 
person  might  as  well  be  introduced  in  the  same  place,  and  for 
the  same  purpose.  And  I  myself  say,  that  Velasquez  quitting  his 
hold  of  the  Dutchess,  upon  sight  of  the  monk,  is  an  effect  without 
a  sufficient  cause.  The  cool,  intrepid  character  of  Velasquez 
required  that  he  should  either  have,  dispatched,  or  attempted  to 
dispatch  the  monk,  and  then  there  would  have  been  a  pretext  for 
losing  hold  of  the  Dutchess.  The  Duke  is  a  poor,  tame  animal, 
and  by  no  means  equal  to  his  historic  character.  A  whimsical 
incident  I  was  witness  to  there.  Murphy  told  a  very  comical 
story  of  a  Scotchman’s  interview  with  Dr.  Johnson,  upon  his 
earnest  desire  of  being  known  to  the  Doctor.  This  was  Boswell 
himself2.  N.B.  The  Tour  to  the  Western  Isles  was  written  in 
twenty  days 3,  and  the  Patriot  in  three 4.  Taxation  no  Tyranny 
within  a  week 5,  and  not  one  of  them  would  have  yet  seen  the 
light,  had  it  not  been  for  Mrs.  Thrale  and  Baretti,  who  stirred 
him  up  by  laying  wagers 6. 


the  ladies  find  so  much  novelty  at 
Weymouth.  Ovid  says  that  the  sun 
is  undelightfully  uniform.’  I  con¬ 
jectured  in  a  note  that  he  wrote  not 
sun  but  sea.  Letters ,  ii.  325.  I  could 
not  however  find  the  reference  to 
Ovid.  I  have  no  doubt  however 
that  he  was  referring  to  the  line 
which  he  quoted  to  Boswell  at 
Leith : — 

‘Una  est  injusti  caerula  forma 
maris.’ 

Ovid,  Amor.  L.  ii.  El.  xi. 

1  A  tragedy  by  Robert  Jephson, 
acted  at  Drury  Lane  1775.  Post , 
p.  182. 

2  Ante ,  i.  428. 

3  He  ‘  conceived  the  thought  of  it  ’ 
on  Sept.  1,  1773.  Life ,  v.  141.  For 
part  of  his  material  he  used  his  letters 
to  Mrs.  Thrale.  In  the  following 
winter  he  was  collecting  information. 
Jb.  ii.  269,  271.  In  March  he  wrote 
to  Boswell : — ‘  I  think  I  shall  be  very 


diligent  next  week  about  our  travels, 
which  I  have  too  long  neglected.’ 
Jb.  ii.  277.  On  June  20  he  ‘put  the 
first  sheets  to  the  press.’  Ib.  p.  278. 
On  July  4  he  had  still  two  sheets  to 
write.  Ib.  p.  288.  Owing  to  the 
delay  of  the  printer  the  last  sheet  was 
not  corrected  till  Nov.  25.  Ib.  p.  288. 

4  ‘  The  Patriot  was  called  for  by 
my  political  friends  on  Friday,  was 
written  on  Saturday.’  Ib.  ii.  288. 

5  On  Jan.  21,  1775,  he  wrote  to 
Boswell : — ‘  I  am  going  to  write  about 
the  Americans.’  Ib.  ii.  292.  On  F eb.  3 
he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale : — ‘My 
pamphlet  has  not  gone  on  at  all.’ 
Letters ,  i.  308.  By  March  1  it  had 
been  not  only  written,  but  altered  by 
some  one  in  the  Ministry,  lb.  i.  309. 
‘  The  False  Alarm  was  written  be¬ 
tween  eight  o’clock  on  Wednesday 
night  and  twelve  o’clock  on  Thurs¬ 
day  night.’  Ante,  i.  173. 

0  According  to  Hawkins,  ‘it  was 

April 


the  Rev .  Dr.  Thomas  Campbell. 


47 


APRIL  5th.  Dined  with  Dilly  in  the  Poultry1,  as  guest  to 
Mr.  Boswell,  where  I  met  Dr.  Johnson,  (and  a  Mr.  Miller,  who 
lives  near  Bath2,  who  is  a  dilletanti  man,  keeps  a  weekly  day 
for  the  Litterati,  and  is  himself  so  litterate,  that  he  gathereth 
all  the  flowers  that  ladies  write,  and  bindeth  into  a  garland, 
but  enough  of  him)  with  several  others,  particularly  a  Mr.  Scott3, 
who  seems  to  be  a  very  sensible  plain  man.  The  Doctor,  when 
I  came  in,  had  an  answer  titled  Taxation  and  Tyranny  to  his 
last  pamphlet,  in  his  hand.  He  laughed  at  it,  and  said  he 
would  read  no  more  of  it,  for  that  it  paid  him  compliments, 
but  gave  him  no  information.  He  asked  if  there  were  any 
more  of  them.  I  told  him  I  had  seen  another,  and  that  the 
Monthly  Review  had  handled  it  in  what  I  believed  he  called 
the  way  of  information.  ‘  Well,’  says  he,  ‘  I  should  be  glad  to 
see  it.5  Then  Boswell  (who  understands  his  temper  well4) 
asked  him  somewhat,  for  I  was  not  attending,  relative  to  the 
Provincial  Assemblies5.  The  Doctor,  in  process  of  discourse 
with  him,  argued  with  great  vehemence  that  the  Assemblies 
were  nothing  more  than  our  Vestries.  I  asked  him,  was  there 
not  this  difference,  that  an  Act  of  the  Assemblies  required 
the  King’s  assent  to  pass  into  a  law :  his  answer  had  more  of 
wit  than  of  argument.  ‘Well  Sir,’  says  he,  ‘that  only  gives 
it  more  weight.5  I  thought  I  had  gone  too  far,  but  dinner 
was  then  announced,  and  Dilly,  who  paid  all  attention  to  him, 
in  placing  him  next  to  the  fire,  said,  ‘  Doctor,  perhaps  you  will 
be  too  warm6.’  ‘No  Sir,5  says  the  Doctor,  ‘I  am  neither  hot 


by  a  wager,  or  some  other  pecuniary 
engagement’  that  he  was  moved  to 
finish  his  Shakespeare.  Life ,  i.  319, 

n.  4. 

1  At  Dilly’s  table  ‘Johnson,  who 
boasted  of  the  niceness  of  his  palate, 
owned  that  “  he  always  found  a  good 
dinner.’”  Life,  iii.  285.  For  this 
particular  dinner  see  ib.  ii.  338. 

2  Ib.  ii.  336. 

3  John  Scott  of  Am  well,  the  Quaker 
poet.  Ib.  ii.  338,  351. 

4  See  ib.  iii.  39,  where  Boswell 
asked  him  a  question  ‘with  an  as¬ 
sumed  air  of  ignorance,  to  incite  him 


a  to  talk,  for  which  it  was  often  neces¬ 
sary  to  employ  some  address.’ 

5  The  assemblies  of  the  thirteen 
American  colonies. 

6  ‘Johnson  told  Sir  Joshua  Rey¬ 
nolds,  that  once  when  he  dined  in 
a  numerous  company  of  booksellers, 
where,  the  room  being  small,  the 
head  of  the  table  at  which  he  sat 
was  almost  close  to  the  fire,  he 
persevered  in  suffering  a  great  deal 
of  inconvenience  from  the  heat, 
rather  than  quit  his  place,  and  let 
one  of  them  sit  above  him.’  Ib. 
iii.  31 1. 


nor 


48 


Anecdotes  by 


nor  cold.’  c  And  yet,’  said  I  c  Doctor,  you  are  not  a  lukewarm 
man.’  This  I  thought  pleased  him,  and  as  I  sat  next  him,  I  had 
a  fine  opportunity  of  attending  to  his  phiz ;  and  I  could  clearly 
see  he  was  fond  of  having  his  quaint  things  laughed  at,  and  they 
(without  any  force)  gratified  my  propensity  to  affuse  grinning. 
Mr.  Dilly  led  him  to  give  his  opinion  of  men  and  things,  of 
which  he  is  very  free,  and  Dilly  will  probably  retail  them  all. 
Talking  of  the  Scotch,  (after  Boswell  was  gone)  he  said,  though 
they  were  not  a  learned  nation,  yet  they  were  far  removed  from 
ignorance.  Learning  was  new  among  them,  and  he  doubted 
not  but  they  would  in  time  be  a  learned  people,  for  they  were 
a  fine,  bold  enterprising  people.  He  compared  England  and 
Scotland  to  two  lions,  the  one  saturated  with  his  belly  full, 
and  the  other  prowling  for  prey.  But  the  test  he  offered  to 
prove  that  Scotland,  tho’  it  had  learning  enough  for  common 
life,  yet  had  not  sufficient  for  the  dignity  of  literature,  was, 
that  he  defied  any  one  to  produce  a  classical  book,  written  in 
Scotland  since  Buchanan  k  Robertson,  he  said,  used  pretty 
words,  but  he  liked  Hume  better1 2,  and  neither  of  them  would 
he  allow  to  be  more  to  Clarendon 3,  than  a  rat  to  a  cat.  *  A 
Scotch  surgeon,’  says  he  ‘  may  have  more  learning  than  an 
English  one,  and  all  Scotland  could  not  muster  learning  enough 
for  Louth’s  prelections4.’  Turning  to  me,  he  said,  cyou  have 
produced  classical  writers  and  scholars ;  I  don’t  know,’  says 
he,  ‘that  any  man  is  before  Usher5,  as  a  scholar,  unless  it  may 
be  Seldon  \stc],  and  you  have  a  philosopher,  Boyle,  and  you 
have  Swift  and  Congreve,  but  the  latter,’  says  he,  ‘  denied  you 6  ’ ; 
and  he  might  have  added  the  former  too7.  He  then  said,  you 


1  Ante ,  ii.  5,  15. 

2  In  1773  Johnson  said  : — ‘I  have 
not  read  Hume.’  Life ,  ii.  236  ;  ante , 
ii.  10. 

3  ‘  Clarendon  (said  Johnson)  is 
supported  by  his  matter.  It  is  in¬ 
deed  owing  to  a  plethory  of  matter 
that  his  style  is  so  faulty.’  Life ,  iii. 
258. 

4  For  Lowth  see  ib.  ii.  37. 

5  ‘Usher  (Johnson  said)  was  the 

great  luminary  of  the  Irish  church  ; 


and  a  greater,  he  added,  no  church 
could  boast  of,  at  least  in  modern 
times.5  Lb.  ii.  132. 

6  ‘  Southern  mentioned  Congreve 
with  sharp  censure  as  a  man  that 
meanly  disowned  his  native  coun¬ 
try.5  Works ,  viii.  23. 

7  ‘  Swift  was  contented  to  be  called 
an  Irishman  by  the  Irish,  but  would 
occasionally  call  himself  an  English¬ 
man.’  Ib.  viii.  192. 


certainly 


the  Rev .  Dr.  Thomas  Campbell. 


49 


certainly  have  a  turn  for  the  drama,  for  you  have  Southerne  and 
Farquhar  and  Congreve x,  and  many  living  authors  and  players. 
Encouraged  by  this,  I  went  back  to  assert  the  genius  of  Ireland 
in  old  times,  and  ventured  to  say  that  the  first  professors  of 
Oxford  and  Paris,  &c.,  were  Irish.  ‘  Sir/  says  he,  ‘  I  believe 
there  is  something  in  what  you  say1  2 3 ;  and  I  am  content  with 
it,  since  they  are  not  Scotch  V 


April  8th.  Very  cold,  and  some  rain,  but  not  enough  to 
allay  the  blowing  of  the  dust.  Dined  with  Thrale4,  where 
Dr.  Johnson  was,  and  Boswell,  (and  Baretti  as  usual.)  The 
Doctor  was  not  in  as  good  spirits  as  he  was  at  Dilly’s.  He 

had  supped  the  night  before  with  Lady - Miss  Jeffry’s,  one 

of  the  maids  of  honour,  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  &c.,  at  Mrs. 
Abington’s5.  He  said  Sir  C.  Thompson,  and  some  others  who 
were  there,  spoke  like  people  who  had  seen  good  company, 
and  so  did  Mrs.  Abington  herself,  who  could  not  have  seen 
good  company6.  He  seems  fond  of  Boswell,  and  yet  he  is 
always  abusing  the  Scots  before  him,  by  way  of  joke7 *:  talking 
of  their  nationality,  he  said  they  were  not  singular:  the  Negros 
and  Jews  being  so  too.  Boswell  lamented  there  was  no  good 
map  of  Scotland.  ‘There  never  can  be  a  good  (map)  of  Scot¬ 
land/  says  the  Doctor  sententiously.  This  excited  Boswell  to 
ask  wherefore.  ‘Why  Sir,  to  measure  land,  a  man  must  go 
over  it ;  but  who  could  think  of  going  over  Scotland  V  When 
Dr.  Goldsmith  was  mentioned,  and  Dr.  Percy’s  intention  of 
writing  his  life 9,  he  expressed  his  approbation  strongly,  adding 
that  Goldsmith  was  the  best  writer  he  ever  knew,  upon  every 


1  He  passes  over  Goldsmith. 

2  Johnson  described  Ireland  as 
having  once  been  ‘  the  school  of  the 
west,  the  quiet  habitation  of  sanctity 
and  literature.’  Life ,  iii.  112. 

3  ‘  The  Irish  (he  said)  have  not 
that  extreme  nationality  which  we 
find  in  the  Scotch.’  Ib.  ii.  242. 

4  Ib.  ii.  349. 

5  Ib.  On  March  27  he  had  gone 

with  ‘  a  body  of  wits’  to  her  benefit. 

Ib.  ii.  324.  On  May  12  he  wrote  to 

Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘  Yesterday  I  had  I 

VOL.  II.  E 


know  not  how  much  kiss  of  Mrs. 
Abington,  and  very  good  looks  from 

Miss - ,  the  maid  of  honour.’ 

Letters ,  i.  316. 

6  Northcote  described  her  as  ‘  the 
Grosvenor  Square  of  Comedy.’  Con¬ 
versations  of  Northcote,  p.  298. 

7  Boswell  describes  ‘the  good- 
humoured  pleasantry  with  which  he 
played  off  his  wit  against  Scotland.’ 
Life ,  ii.  77. 

8  Ib.  ii.  356. 

9  Ib.  iii.  100,  n.  1. 

subject 


5° 


Anecdotes  by 


subject  he  wrote  upon x.  He  said  that  Kendric 2  had  borrowed 
all  his  dictionary  from  him.  ‘  Why,’  says  Boswell,  c  every  man 
who  writes  a  dictionary  must  borrow.’  ‘No  Sir/  says  Johnson, 
‘that  is  not  necessary.’  ‘Why/  says  Boswell,  ‘have  not  you 
a  great  deal  in  common  with  those  who  wrote  before  you/  ‘Yes 
Sir/  says  Johnson,  c  I  have  the  words,  but  my  business  was  not  to 
make  words  but  to  explain  them.’  Talking  of  Garrick  and  Barry 3, 
he  said  he  always  abused  Garrick  himself,  but  when  anybody  else 
did  so,  he  fought  for  the  dog  like  a  tiger 4 ;  as  to  Barry,  he  said 
he  supposed  he  could  not  read.  ‘  And  how  does  he  get  his  part  ?  ’ 
says  one.  ‘  Why,  somebody  reads  it  to  him,  and  yet  I  know,’  says 
he,  ‘  that  he  is  very  much  admired.’  Mrs.  Thrale  then  took  him 
by  repealing  a  repartee  of  Murphy,  the  setting  Barry  up  in  com¬ 
petition  with  Garrick,  is  what  irritates  the  English  Criticks,  and 
Murphy  standing  up  for  Barry.  Johnson  said  that  he  was  fit  for 
nothing  but  to  stand  at  an  auction  room  door  with  his  pole. 
Murphy  said  that  Garrick  would  do  the  business  as  well,  and 
pick  the  people’s  pockets  at  the  same  time.  Johnson  admitted 
the  fact,  but  said,  Murphy  spoke  nonsense,  for  that  people’s 
pockets  were  not  picked  at  the  door,  but  in  the  room  5 ;  then 
said  I,  he  was  worse  than  the  pick- pockets,  forasmuch  as  he 
was  Pandar  to  them ;  this  went  off  with  a  laugh.  Vive  la 
bagatelle 6.  It  was  a  case  decided  here,  that  there  was  no  harm, 
and  much  pleasure  in  laughing  at  our  absent  friends,  and  I 
own,  if  the  character  is  not  damaged,  I  can  see  no  injury  done. 

April  9th.  A  fair  dayy  went  to  St.  Clements  to  hear  Mr. 
Burrows 1 ,  so  cried  up  by  Lord  Dartrey 8,  preach,  but  I  was 
wofully  disappointed ;  his  matter  is  cold,  his  manner  hot,  his 
voice  weak,  and  his  action  affected.  Indeed  I  thought  he 


1  ‘Johnson.  “Whether  indeed 
we  take  Goldsmith  as  a  poet,  as  a 
comick  writer,  or  as  an  historian,  he 
stands  in  the  first  class.”  ’  Life, 
ii.  236. 

2  William  Kenrick.  Ib.  i.  497 ;  ii.  61. 

3  Spranger  Barry,  the  actor. 

4  Ib.  i.  397,  n.  1  ;  iii.  70,  312. 

5  Ib.  ii.  349. 


6  Swift’s  ‘favourite maxim.’  Works , 
viii.  217. 

7  Life,  iii.  379. 

8  Dartrey,  Lord.  Thomas  Daw¬ 
son,  created  a  peer  of  Ireland,  May 
28,  1770,  as  Baron  Dartrey,  of  Daw¬ 
son’s  Grove,  and  also  Viscount 
Cremorne,  June,  1785.  B.  1725  ; 
d.  1813. 


preached 


the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Campbell. 


5i 


preached  from  a  printed  book,  a  book  it  certainly  was,  and  it 
seemed  at  my  distance,  which  was  the  perpendicular  to  the 
side  of  the  pulpit,  to  have  a  broad  margin-like  print,  and  he 
did  not  seem  master  of  it,  yet  he  affected  much  emphasis  and 
action.  Dined  with  Mr.  Combe,  and  spent  the  evening  with 
Dr.  Campbell1. 


APRIL  10th.  Rain,  but  not  enough  to  soften  the  asperity  of 
the  weather.  Dined  with  General  Oglethorpe 2,  who  was  in  lieu 
of  Aid-de-Camp,  (for  he  had  no  such  officer  about  him)  to  Prince 
Eugene,  and  celebrated  by  Mr.  Pope3.  Dr.  Johnson  pressed 
him  to  write  his  life ;  adding,  that  no  life  in  Europe  was  so  well 
worth  recording 4.  The  old  man  excused  himself,  saying  the  life 
of  a  private  man  was  not  worthy  public  notice.  He  however 
desired  Boswell  to  bring  him  some  good  Almanack,  that  he 
might  recollect  dates,  and  seemed  to  excuse  himself  also  on  the 
article  of  incapacity,  but  Boswell  desired  him  only  to  furnish  the 
skeleton,  and  that  Dr.  Johnson  would  supply  bones  and  sinews. 
‘  He  would  be  a  good  Doctor,’  says  the  General,  ‘  who  would  do 
that.’  ‘Well,’  says  I,  ‘he  is  a  good  Doctor/  at  which  he, 
the  Doctor,  laughed  very  heartily.  Talking  of  America,  it  was 
observed  that  his  works  would  not  be  admired  there.  ‘  No/ 
says  Boswell,  ‘  we  shall  soon  hear  of  his  being  hung  in  effigy.’ 
‘  I  should  be  glad  of  that/  says  the  Doctor,  ‘  that  would  be 
a  new  source  of  fame ;  ’  alluding  to  some  conversation  on  the 
fulness  of  his  fame  which  had  gone  before.  And  says  Boswell, 
‘  I  wonder  he  has  not  been  hung  in  effigy  from  the  Hebrides  to 
England.’  ‘  I  shall  suffer  them  to  do  it  corporeally,’  says  the 
Doctor,  ‘  if  they  can  find  me  a  tree  to  do  it  upon 5.’ 


1  Dr.  John  Campbell.  ‘JcmMSON* 
“  I  used  to  go  pretty  often  to  Camp¬ 
bell’s  on  a  Sunday  evening,  till  I 
began  to  consider  that  the  shoals  of 
Scotchmen  who  flocked  about  him 
might  probably  say,  when  anything 
of  mine  was  well  done,  1  Ay,  ay,  he 
has  learnt  this  of  Cawmell.’  ”  ’  Life, 
i.  418. 

2  It  was  by  Boswell  that  Dr. 

Thomas  Campbell  was  taken  to 


Oglethorpe’s  as  he  had  been  taken 
to  Dilly’s.  Ib.  ii.  350. 

3  Ib.  i.  127 ;  ii.  181. 

4  ‘  Dr.  Johnson  urged  General  Ogle¬ 
thorpe  to  give  the  world  his  Life. 
He  said,  “  I  know  no  man  whose 
Life  would  be  more  interesting.  If 
I  were  furnished  with  materials  I 
should  be  very  glad  to  write  it.”  ’ 
Ib.  ii.  351. 

5  Ib.  ii.  31 1. 

3 


The 


52 


Anecdotes  by 


The  Poem  of  the  Graces  became  the  topic ;  Boswell  asked  if 
he  had  never  been  under  the  hands  of  a  dancing  master x.  4  Aye, 
and  a  dancing  mistress  too/  says  the  Doctor,  ‘  but  I  own  to  you 
I  never  took  a  lesson  but  one  or  two,  my  blind  eyes  showed  me 
I  could  never  make  a  proficiency.’  Boswell  led  him  to  give  his 
opinion  of  Gray,  he  said  there  were  but  two  good  stanzas  in  all 
his  works,  viz.,  the  elegy1 2.  Boswell  desirous  of  eliciting  his 
opinion  upon  too  many  subjects,  as  he  thought,  he  rose  up 
and  took  his  hat 3.  This  was  not  noticed  by  anybody  as  it 
was  nine  o’clock,  but  after  we  got  into  Mr.  Langton’s  coach, 
who  gave  us  a  set  down,  he  said,  ‘  Boswell’s  conversation  consists 
entirely  in  asking  questions,  and  it  is  extremely  offensive  V  we 
defended  it  upon  Boswell’s  eagerness  to  hear  the  Doctor  speak. 

Talking  of  suicide 5,  Boswell  took  up  the  defence  for  argument’s 
sake,  and  the  Doctor  said  that  some  cases  were  more  excusable 
than  others,  but  if  it  were  excusable,  it  should  be  the  last 
resource ;  ‘  for  instance/  says  he,  £  if  a  man  is  distressed  in 
circumstances,  (as  in  the  case  I  mentioned  of  Denny)  he  ought 
to  fly  his  country.’  ‘  How  can  he  fly/  says  Boswell,  ‘  if  he 
has  wife  and  children?’  c  What  Sir/ says  the  Doctor,  shaking 
his  head  as  if  to  promote  the  fermentation  of  his  wit,  4  doth  not 
a  man  fly  from  his  wife  and  children  if  he  murders  himself?’ 


April  16th.  Dined  with  Archdeacon  Congreve,  my  Lord  Pri¬ 
mate6  came  there  in  the  evening.  He  asked  me  sneeringly  if  I  had 
seen  the  lions 7.  I  told  him  I  had  neither  seen  them  nor  the  crown, 
nor  the  jewels,  nor  the  whispering-gallery  at  St.  Paul’s.  The 
conversation  turned  upon  other  things,  and  came  round  to  his 
picture  by  Reynolds,  which  led  on  talk  of  Sir  Joshua  and  other 
great  artists,  and  without  any  force,  I  introduced  something  of 
Johnson.  *  What/  says  he,  4  do  you  know  him  ?’  4  Yes  my  Lord 
I  do,  and  Barretti  [sic],  and  several  others,  whom  I  have  been 


1  Life ,  iv.  79. 

2  This  he  had  said  to  Boswell 
about  a  fortnight  earlier.  Ib.  ii. 
328.  For  two  ‘very  good  lines’  in 
the  Bard  see  ib.  i.  403. 

3  ‘He  was  not  much  in  the  humour 
of  talking.’  Ib.  ii.  352. 


4  ‘Questioning  (said  Johnson)  is 
not  the  mode  of  conversation  among 
gentlemen.’  Ib.  ii.  472.  See  also 
ib.  iii.  57,  268  ;  iv.  439. 

5  Ib.  iv.  225  ;  v.  54. 

6  The  Archbishop  of  Armagh. 

7  In  the  Tower. 


fortunate 


the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Campbell. 


53 


fortunate  enough  to  find  willing  to  extend  my  acquaintance 
among  their  friends,  for  these,  my  Lord,  were  the  lions  I  came 
to  see  in  London.’  ‘Aye,’  says  he,  ‘these  indeed  are  lions 
worth  seeing,  and  the  sight  of  them  may  be  of  use  to  you.’ 

April  20th.  Fair,  and  somewhat  softened  by  the  fall  of  hail 
yesterday.  Dined  at  Thrale’s1,  with  Dr.  Johnson,  Barretti,  and 
a  Dean  Wetherall  of  Oxford 2,  who  is  soliciting  for  a  riding  house 
at  Oxford.  When  I  mentioned  to  the  Doctor  another  answer, 
entitled  Resistance  no  Rebellion ,  coming  out,  he  said,  ‘that  is 
the  seventh,  the  author  finds  the  other  six  will  not  do,  and  I 
foresee  that  the  title  is  the  best  part  of  the  book.’  He  desired 
that  I  should  visit  him.  N.B. — Talking  after  dinner  of  the 
measures  he  would  pursue  with  the  Americans,  he  said  the  first 
thing  he  would  do,  would  be  to  quarter  the  army  on  the  citys, 
and  if  any  refused  free  quarters,  he  would  pull  down  that  person’s 
house,  if  it  was  joyned  to  other  houses,  but  would  burn  it  if  it 
stood  alone 3.  This  and  other  schemes  he  proposed  in  the 
manuscript  of  Taxation  no  Tyranny ,  but  these,  he  said,  the 
Ministry  expunged 4. 


24th.  Rainy  morning.  Sat  an  hour  with  Dr.  Johnson  about 
noon.  He  was  at  breakfast  with  a  Pindar5  in  his  hand,  and  after 
saluting  me  with  great  cordiality,  he,  after  whistling  in  his  way  6 
over  Pindar,  layed  the  book  down,  and  then  told  me  he  had 
seen  my  Lord  Primate  at  Sir  Joshua’s,  and  ‘I  believe,’  says  he, 
‘  I  have  not  recommended  myself  much  to  him,  for  I  differed 
widely  in  opinions  from  him,  yet  I  hear  he  is  doing  good  things 
in  Ireland7.’  I  mentioned  Skelton  to  him  as  a  man  of  strong 


1  Boswell  was  absent  from  London 
from  April  19  to  May  2.  Life ,  ii.  371. 

2  Dr.  Wetherell  was  Master  of 
University  College,  Oxford,  and  Dean 
of  Hereford.  Johnson  had  written 
to  Mrs.  Thrale  on  April  1  : — ‘  Dr. 
Wetherell  is  very  desirous  of  seeing 
the  brewhouse;  I  hope  Mr.  Thrale 
will  send  him  an  invitation.’  Letters , 
i.  313.  For  the  riding-school  see 
Life,  ii.  424  ;  Letters ,  i.  309,  n.  I. 

3  See  Life ,  iii.  290,  where  he  called 


the  Americans  ‘  Rascals — Robbers — 
Pirates ;  exclaiming  he’d  burn  and 
destroy  them,’  and  post,  p.  55. 

4  Life ,  ii.  313.  For  Hume’s  wise 
views  see  his  Letters  to  Strahan , 
p.  288. 

5  Boswell  had  sent  him  an  ‘  elegant 
Pindar.’  Life ,  ii.  204. 

6  ‘He  half-whistled  in  his  usual 
way  when  pleasant.’  Ib.  iii.  357* 

7  For  Johnson’s  views  about  Ire¬ 
land  see  Life ,  ii.  121,  130,  255. 

imagination, 


54 


Anecdotes  by 


imagination,  and  told  him  the  story  of  his  selling  his  library 
for  the  support  of  the  poor1.  He  seemed  much  affected  by  it, 
and  then  fell  a  rowling  and  muttering  to  himself,  and  I  could 
hear  him  plainly  say  after  several  minutes  pause  from  con¬ 
versation,  ‘Skelton  is  a  great  good  man/  He  then  said,  ‘I 
purpose  reading  his  Ophiomachis ,  for  I  have  never  seen  anything 
of  his,  but  some  allegoric  pieces  which  I  thought  very  well  of/ 
He  told  me  he  had  seen  Delany  when  he  was  in  every  sense 
gravis  annis ,  ‘  but  he  was  [an]  able  man,’  says  he,  ‘  his  “  Reve¬ 
lation  examined  with  candour  ”  was  well  received,  and  I  have 
seen  an  introductory  preface  to  a  second  edition  of  one  of  his 
books,  which  was  the  finest  thing  I  ever  read  in  the  declamatory 
way2/  He  asked  me  whether  Clayton  was  an  English  or  Irish 
man.  e  He  endeavoured  to  raise  a  hissy  3  among  you,’  says  he, 
‘  but  without  effect  I  believe/  I  told  him  one  effect  in  the  case 
of  the  parish  clerks.  His  indignation  was  prodigious.  ‘Aye/ 
says  he,  ‘  these  are  the  effects  of  heretical  notions  upon  vulgar 
minds/ 


JUNE  nth.  1781.  I  went  to  see  Dr.  Johnson,  found  him  alone, 
Barretti  came  soon  after.  Barretti  (after  some  pause  in  conver¬ 
sation)  asked  me,  if  the  disturbances  were  over  in  Ireland.  I  told 
him  I  had  not  heard  of  any  disturbances  there.  ‘  What,’  says 
he,  c  have  you  not  been  up  in  arms?’  ‘Yes,  and  a  great  number 
of  men  continue  so  to  be/  ‘  And  dont  you  call  that  disturb¬ 
ance?’  returned  Barretti.  ‘No,’  said  I,  ‘the  Irish  volunteers 
have  demeaned  themselves  very  peaceably,  and  instead  of 
disturbing  the  peace  of  the  country,  have  contributed  much 
to  its  preservation4.’  The  Doctor,  who  had  been  long  silent, 


1  Rev.  Philip  Skelton,  born  near 
Lisburne,  1707;  died  in  1 787.  In 
1750  he  obtained  the  living  of  Pel- 
tigo,  in  Donegal.  Here,  in  a  time  of 
scarcity,  he  even  sold  his  library  to 
supply  his  indigent  parishioners  with 
bread.  His  works  are  in  7  vols.  8vo. 
Universal  Biography ,  quoted  by  the 
editor  of  Campbell’s  Diary ,  p.  154. 

2  Patrick  Delany,  friend  of  Dr. 

Swift,  born  about  1686.  In  1731  he 


came  to  London  to  publish  his  Reve¬ 
lation  exami?ied  with  Ca?idour.  He 
died  at  Bath  in  1768.  Ib.  p.  155. 
Johnson  praised  his  Observatio?is  on 
Swift.  Life ,  iii.  249. 

3  This  word  is  not  in  Johnson’s 
Dictionary. 

4  Horace  Walpole  thus  describes 
public  affairs  in  February,  1779: — 
‘  The  navy  disgusted,  insurrections 
in  Scotland,  Wales  mutinous,  a  re¬ 
turned 


the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Campbell. 


55 


turned  a  sharp  ear  to  what  I  was  saying,  and  with  vehemence 
said,  ‘What  Sir,  dont  you  call  it  disturbance  to  oppose  legal 
government  with  arms  in  your  hands,  and  compel  it  to  make 
laws  in  your  favour  ?  Sir,  I  call  it  rebellion  ;  rebellion  as  much 
as  the  rebellion  of  Scotland.’  ‘  Doctor,’  said  I,  ‘  I  am  sorry  to 
hear  that  fall  from  you,  I  must  however  say  that  the  Irish 
consider  themselves  as  the  most  loyal  of  His  Majesty’s  subjects, 
at  the  same  time  that  they  firmly  deny  any  allegiance  to  a  British 
Parliament.  They  have  a  separate  Legislature,  and  that  they 
have  never  showed  any  inclination  to  resist.’  ‘  Sir,’  says  the  Doctor, 
‘  you  do  owe  allegiance  to  the  British  Parliament  as  a  conquered 
nation x,  and  had  I  been  Minister  I  would  have  made  you  submit 
to  it.  I  would  have  done  as  Oliver  Cromwell  did ;  I  would 
have  burned  your  cities,  and  wasted  you  in  the  fires  (or  flames) 
of  them 2.’  I,  after  allowing  the  Doctor  to  vent  his  indignation 
upon  Ireland,  cooly  replyed,  ‘  Doctor,  the  times  are  altered,  and 
I  dont  find  that  you  have  succeeded  so  well  in  burning  the 
cities,  and  roasting  the  inhabitants  of  America.’  ‘  Sir,’  says  he 
gravely,  and  with  a  less  vehement  tone,  ‘  what  you  say  is  true, 
the  times  are  altered,  for  power  is  now  nowhere,  we  live  under 
a  government  of  influence,  not  of  power 3 ;  but  Sir,  had  we 


bellion  ready  to  break  out  in  Ireland 
where  15,000  Protestants  were  in 
arms,  without  authority,  for  their 
own  defence,  many  of  them  well- 
wishers  to  the  Americans,  and  all  so 
ruined  that  they  insisted  on  relief 
from  Parliament,  or  were  ready  to 
throw  off  subjection.’  Journal  of  the 
Reign  of  George  ///,  ii.  339. 

1  On  May  7,  1773,  ‘bursting  forth 
with  a  generous  indignation  he  said, 
“  The  Irish  are  in  a  most  unnatural 
state  ;  for  we  see  there  the  minority 
prevailing  over  the  majority.  There 
is  no  instance,  even  in  the  ten  perse¬ 
cutions,  of  such  severity  as  that  which 
the  Protestants  of  Ireland  have  exer¬ 
cised  against  the  Catholicks.  Did  we 
tell  them  we  have  conquered  them, 
it  would  be  above  board :  to  punish 
them  by  confiscation  and  other 


penalties,  as  rebels,  was  monstrous 
injustice.  King  William  was  not 
their  lawful  sovereign ;  he  had  not 
been  acknowledged  by  the  Parlia¬ 
ment  of  Ireland  when  they  appeared 
in  arms  against  him.”  ’  Life,  ii.  255. 

2  ‘Johnson  severely  reprobated  the 
barbarous  debilitating  policy  of  the 
British  government  [in  Ireland], 
which,  he  said,  was  the  most  detest¬ 
able  method  of  persecution.  To  a 
gentleman  who  hinted  such  policy 
might  be  necessary  to  support  the 
authority  of  the  English  government 
he  replied  by  saying,  “  Let  the  au¬ 
thority  of  the  English  government 
perish  rather  than  be  maintained  by 
iniquity.”’  Ib.  ii.  121. 

3  Boswell,  arguing  with  Johnson 
on  Sept.  23,  1777,  says  ‘  I  insisted 
that  America  might  be  very  well 

treated 


56 


Anecdotes  by 


treated  the  Americans  as  we  ought,  and  as  they  deserved,  we 

should  have  at  once  razed  all  their  towns, - and  let  them 

enjoy  their  forests - .’  After  this  wild  rant,  argument  would 

but  have  enraged  him,  I  therefore  let  him  vibrate  into  calmness, 
then  turning  round  to  me,  he,  with  a  smile,  says,  c  After  all  Sir, 
though  I  hold  the  Irish  to  be  rebels,  I  dont  think  they  have 
been  so  very  wrong,  but  you  know  that  you  compelled  our 
Parliament,  by  force  of  arms,  to  pass  an  act  in  your  favour. 
That,  I  call  rebellion/  ‘  But  Doctor,’  said  I,  ‘  did  the  Irish  claim 
anything  that  ought  not  to  have  been  granted,  though  they 
had  not  made  the  claim/  ‘  Sir,  I  wont  dispute  that  matter  with 
you,  but  what  I  insist  upon  is  that  the  mode  of  requisition  was 
rebellious.’  ‘  Well  Doctor,  let  me  ask  you  but  one  question, 
and  I  shall  ask  you  no  more  on  this  subject,  do  you  think  that 
Ireland  would  have  obtained  what  it  has  got  by  any  other 
means?’  ‘Sir,’  says  he  candidly,  ‘I  believe  it  would  not. 
However,  a  wise  government  should  not  grant  even  a  claim 
of  justice,  if  an  attempt  is  made  to  extort  it  by  force  V  I  said 
no  more 2. 


governed,  and  made  to  yield  sufficient 
revenue  by  the  means  of  influence , 
as  exemplified  in  Ireland,  while  the 
people  might  be  pleased  with  the 
imagination  of  their  participating  of 
the  British  constitution,  by  having 
a  body  of  representatives  without 
whose  consent  money  could  not  be 
extracted  from  them.’  Life ,  iii.  205. 
For  influence  see  lb .  iii.  205,  n.  4, 
and  Letters ,  i.  107,  n.  1. 

When  in  March,  1782,  Lord 
North’s  government  was  overthrown, 
J ohnson  said : — ‘  I  am  glad  the  Minis¬ 
try  is  removed.  Such  a  bunch  of 
imbecility  never  disgraced  a  country.’ 
Life,  iv.  139. 

1  J  ohnson  wrote  on  Aug.  4, 1 782 : — 
‘  Perhaps  no  nation  not  absolutely 
conquered  has  declined  so  much  in 
so  short  a  time.  We  seem  to  be 
sinking.  Suppose  the  Irish,  having 
already  gotten  a  free  trade  and  an 
independent  Parliament,  should  say 


we  will  have  a  King  and  ally  our¬ 
selves  with  the  house  of  Bourbon, 
what  could  be  done  to  hinder  or  to 
overthrow  them.’  Letters ,  ii.  264. 

2  Campbell  published  the  following 
account  of  this  conversation  in  his 
Strictures  on  the  History  of  Ireland, 
ed.  1789,  p.  336: — ‘This  considera¬ 
tion  was  vehemently  urged  against 
me  by  Dr.  Johnson,  in  a  conversation 
I  once  held  with  him  respecting  the 
affairs  of  this  country  (Ireland).  The 
conversation  appeared  to  my  dear 
friend  Dr.  Wilkinson  (to  whom  I  re¬ 
peated  it  within  an  hour  or  two  after 
it  passed)  so  extraordinary  that  he 
gave  me  pen,  ink  and  paper  to  set  it 
down  immediately.  But  first  let  me 
premise  a  circumstance  or  two. — 
Having  spent  the  winter  of  the  year 
1777  in  London,  I  had  been  honoured 
(and  it  is  my  pride  to  acknowledge  it) 
with  his  familiarity  and  friendship. 
I  had  not  seen  him  from  that  time 


the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Campbell. 


57 


till  the  nth  of  June,  1781,  when  I 
went  to  pay  him  a  morning  visit. 
I  found  him  alone,  and  nothing  but 
mutual  enquiries  respecting  mutual 
friends  had  passed,  when  Barretti 
came  in.  Barretti,  more  curious  than 
the  Doctor,  soon  asked  me  if  the 
Disturbances  in  Ireland  were  over. 
The  question,  I  own,  surprized  me, 
as  I  had  left  all  things  quiet,  and  was 
not  at  first  altogether  aware  of  the 
tendency  of  his  question.  I  therefore 
in  return  asked  what  disturbances  he 
meant,  for  that  I  had  heard  of  none. 
“  What !  ”  said  he,  “  have  you  not 
been  in  arms  ?”  To  which  I  answered 
categorically,  “  Yes !  and  many  bodies 
of  men  continue  so  to  be.”  “And 
don’t  you  call  this  Disturbance  ?  ”  re¬ 
joined  Barretti.  “No!”  said  I,  “the 
Irish  volunteers  have  demeaned  them¬ 
selves  very  peaceably,”  ’  &c. 

[Here  follows  a  long  explanation 
of  the  volunteers  which  I  omit.] 

‘  Dr.  Johnson,  who  all  this  while  sat 


silent,  but  with  a  very  attentive  ear  to 
what  passed,  at  length  turned  to  me 
with  an  apparent  indignation  which 
I  had  never  before  experienced  from 
him.’ 

Here  follows  Johnson’s  speech  in 
much  the  same  words  as  in  the  text, 
except  that  1  wasted  in  the  flames  ’  is 
‘  roasted  in  the  flames.’  Wasted 
probably  is  a  misprint.  Campbell 
continues  : — ‘  After  this  explosion  I 
perhaps  warmly  replied  ’  [In  the  text 
Campbell  ‘  cooly  replyed  ’].  Johnson 
continues  as  in  the  text,  but  adds : — 
‘  in  a  jocular  way,  repeating  what  he 
before  said,  “when  we  should  have 
roasted  the  Americans  as  rebels  we 
only  whipped  them  as  children,  and 
we  did  not  succeed  because  my 
advice  was  not  taken.5’  ’  The  con¬ 
versation  ends  with  his  saying : — 
i  Why,  Sir,  I  don’t  know  but  I  might 
have  acted  as  you  did,  had  I  been 
an  Irishman;  but  I  speak  as  an 
Englishman.5 


A  NEC  DO  TES 

FROM  PENNINGTON’S  MEMOIRS  OF 

MRS.  CARTER 


Mrs.  Carter  always  spoke  in  high  terms  of  Dr.  Johnson’s 
constant  attendance  to  religious  duties,  and  the  soundness  of  his 
moral  principles.  In  one  of  their  latest  conversations  she  was 
expressing  this  opinion  of  him  to  himself ;  he  took  her  by  the 
hand,  and  said  with  much  eagerness  ;  ‘  You  know  this  to  be  true, 
and  testify  it  to  the  world  when  I  am  gone/  Vol.  i.  p.  41. 

The  following  epigram  by  Dr.  Johnson,  found  among  Mrs. 
Carter’s  poems,  in  his  own  hand-writing  has  never,  I  believe, 
been  published  before. 

1  Quid  mihi  cum  cultu  ?  Probitas  inculta  nitescit, 

Et  juvat  Ingenii  vita  sine  arte  rudis. 

Ingenium  et  mores  si  pulchra  probavit  Elisa, 

Quid  majus  mihi  spes  ambitiosa  dabit1?’ 

Vol.  i.  p.  398. 

To  these  parties  [at  Mrs.  Montagu’s  and  Mrs.  Vesey’s]  it  was 
not  difficult  for  any  person  of  character  to  be  introduced.  There 
was  no  ceremony,  no  cards  and  no  supper.  Even  dress  was  so 
little  regarded,  that  a  foreign  gentleman,  who  was  to  go  there  with 
an  acquaintance,  was  told  in  jest  that  it  was  so  little  necessary 
that  he  might  appear  there,  if  he  pleased,  in  blue  stockings.  This 
he  understood  in  the  literal  sense  ;  and  when  he  spoke  of  it  in 
French  called  it  the  Bas  Bleu  meeting.  And  this  was  the  origin 

1  For  his  other  epigrams  to  her,  see  Life ,  i.  122,  140,  and  Works ,  i.  170. 

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Anecdotes  from  Pennington  s  Memoirs. 


59 


of  the  ludicrous  appellation  of  the  Blue  Stocking  Club,  since 
given  to  these  meetings,  and  so  much  talked  of1. 

Nothing  could  be  more  agreeable,  nor  indeed  more  instructive, 
than  these  parties.  Mrs.  Vesey2  had  the  almost  magic  art  of 
putting  all  her  company  at  their  ease,  without  the  least  appear¬ 
ance  of  design.  Here  was  no  formal  circle  to  petrify  an  unfor¬ 
tunate  stranger  on  his  entrance ;  no  rules  of  conversation  to 
observe ;  no  holding  forth  of  one  to  his  own  distress,  and  the 
stupefying  of  his  audience,  no  reading  of  his  works  by  the  author. 
The  company  naturally  broke  into  little  groups,  perpetually 
varying  and  changing3.  They  talked  or  were  silent,  sat  or 
walked  about,  just  as  they  pleased.  Nor  was  it  absolutely 
necessary  even  to  talk  sense.  There  was  no  bar  to  harmless 
mirth  and  gaiety :  and  while  perhaps  Dr.  Johnson  in  one  corner 
held  forth  on  the  moral  duties,  in  another,  two  or  three  young 
people  might  be  talking  of  the  fashions  and  the  Opera ;  and  in 
a  third  Lord  Orford  (then  Mr.  Horace  Walpole)  might  be 
amusing  a  little  group  around  him  with  his  lively  wit  and 
intelligent  conversation 4. 

1  For  another  explanation  of  the 
name,  see  Life ,  iv.  108. 

‘  Blue-stocking.  Wearing  blue 
worsted  (instead  of  black  silk)  stock¬ 
ings  ;  hence ,  not  in  full  dress,  in 
homely  dress  ( contemptuous ).  Ap¬ 
plied  to  the  “  Little  Parliament  ”  of 
1653,  with  reference  to  the  puritani¬ 
cally  plain  or  mean  attire  of  its  mem¬ 
bers.  Applied  depreciatively  to  the 
assemblies  that  met  at  Montagu 
House,  and  those  who  frequented 
them  or  imitated  them.  Hence  of 
women  :  Having  or  affecting  literary 
tastes.  Transferred  sneeringly  to  any 
woman  showing  a  taste  for  learning. 

Much  used  by  reviewers  of  the  first 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  ; 
but  now,  from  the  general  change  of 
opinion  on  the  education  of  women, 
nearly  abandoned.’  New  English 
Dictionary. 

Wraxall  [Memoirs^ d.  1815,  i.  140) 


says  that  the  Blue  Stockings  c  formed 
a  very  numerous,  powerful,  compact 
phalanx  in  the  midst  of  London.’ 

‘  Lord  Jeffrey  said  that  there  was 
no  objection  to  the  blue-stocking, 
provided  the  petticoat  came  low 
enough  down.’  Cockburn’s  Memoirs , 
ed.  1856,  p.  268. 

2  Life ,  iii.  424-6.  Hannah  More’s 
Bas  Bleu  is  addressed  to  her. 

3  According  to  Miss  Burney,  ‘  Lord 
Harcourt  said,  “  Mrs.  Vesey’s  fear 
of  ceremony  is  really  troublesome  ; 
for  her  eagerness  to  break  a  circle  is 
such  that  she  insists  upon  every¬ 
body’s  sitting  with  their  backs  one  to 
another ;  that  is,  the  chairs  are 
drawn  ipto  little  parties  of  three 
together  in  a  confused  manner  all 
over  the  room.”  ’  Mme.  D’Arblay’s 
Diary ,  i.  184. 

4  Life ,  iii.  425,  n.  3. 


Now 


6o 


Anecdotes  from  Pennington  s  Memoirs. 


Now  and  then  perhaps  Mrs.  Vesey  might  call  the  attention 
of  the  company  in  general  to  some  circumstance  of  news,  politics, 
or  literature,  of  peculiar  importance  ;  or  perhaps  to  an  anecdote, 
or  interesting  account  of  some  person  known  to  the  company  in 
general.  Of  this  last  kind  a  laughable  circumstance  occurred 
about  the  year  1778.  when  Mrs.  Carter  was  confined  to  her  bed 
with  a  fever,  which  was  thought  to  be  dangerous.  She  was 
attended  by  her  brother-in-law,  Dr.  Douglas,  then  a  physician  in 
Town,  and  he  was  in  the  habit  of  sending  bulletins  of  the  state 
of  her  health  to  her  most  intimate  friends,  with  many  of 
whom  he  was  well  acquainted  himself.  At  one  of  Mrs.  Vesey  s 
parties  a  note  was  brought  to  her.  which  she  immediately  saw 
was  from  Dr.  Douglas.  ‘  Oh !  ’  said  she,  before  she  opened  it, 
‘this  contains  an  account  of  our  dear  Mrs.  Carter.  We  are  all 
interested  in  her  health :  Dr.  Johnson,  pray  read  it  out  for  the 
information  of  the  company.’  There  was  a  profound  silence ; 
and  the  Doctor,  with  the  utmost  gravity’,  read  aloud  the 
physician’s  report  of  the  happy  effect  which  Mrs.  Carter's 
medicines  had  produced,  with  a  full  and  complete  account  of 
the  circumstances  attending  them.  Vol.  i.  p.  465. 


ANECDOTES  BY  JOSEPH  CRA DOCK 1 


♦+ 


The  first  time  I  dined  in  company  with  Dr.  Johnson  was  at 
T.  Davies’s2,  Russell  Street,  Covent  Garden,  as  mentioned  by 
Mr.  Boswell,  in  his  Life  of  Johnson 3.  On  mentioning  my 
engagement  previously  to  a  friend,  he  said,  ‘Do  you  wish  to  be 
well  with  Johnson?’  ‘To  be  sure,  Sir,’  I  replied,  ‘or  I  should 
not  have  taken  any  pains  to  have  been  introduced  into  his 
company.’  ‘  Why  then,  Sir,’  says  he,  ‘  let  me  offer  you  some 
advice :  you  must  not  leave  him  soon  after  dinner  to  go  to 
the  play ;  during  dinner  he  will  be  rather  silent — it  is  a  very 


1  ‘  From  Mr.  Cradock’s  Memoirs. 
\Literary  Memoirs ,  4  vols.  London, 
1828.]  These  anecdotes  are  certainly 
very  loose  and  inaccurate ;  but  as 
they  have  been  republished  in  the 
Gentleman' s  Magazine  for  January, 
1828,  “with  some  corrections  and 
additions  from  the  author’s  MS.,” 
I  think  it  right  to  notice  them  ;  and, 
as  they  profess  to  be  there  enlarged 
from  the  MS.,  I  copy  this  latter  ver¬ 
sion,  which  differs,  in  some  points, 
from  the  memoirs.’ — Croker,  ix.  236. 
Croker  does  not  always  follow  the 
version  in  the  Gentleman' s  Magazine . 

2  Life ,  i.  390. 

Dr.  Campbell  said  of  Davies  : — ‘  he 
was  not  a  bookseller,  but  a  gentleman 
dealing  in  books.’  Nichols’s  Lit. 
Anec.  vi.  429  n.  Perhaps  he  was  too 
much  of  a  gentleman,  and  too  little 
of  a  tradesman,  for  less  than  two 


years  after  this  dinner  Johnson  wrote 
to  Mrs.  Montagu  : — ‘  Poor  Davies, 
the  bankrupt  bookseller,  is  soliciting 
his  friends  to  collect  a  small  sum  for 
the  repurchase  of  part  of  his  house¬ 
hold  stuff.’  Letters ,  ii.  64. 

3  ‘  On  Friday,  April  12  [1776],  I 
dined  with  him  at  our  friend  Tom 
Davies’s,  where  we  met  Mr.  Cradock, 
of  Leicestershire,  authour  of  Zobeide, 
a  tragedy ;  a  very  pleasing  gentleman ; 
and  Dr.  Harwood,  who  has  written 
and  published  various  works ;  par¬ 
ticularly  a  fantastical  translation  of 
the  New  Testament,  in  modern 
phrase,  and  with  a  Socinian  twist.’ 
Life,  iii.  38. 

‘  There  is  a  new  tragedy  at  Covent 
Garden,  called  Zobeide ,  which,  I  am 
told,  is  very  indifferent,  though 
written  by  a  country-gentleman.’ 
Walpole’s  Letters ,  v.  356. 


serious 


62 


Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


serious  business  with  him  r ;  between  six  and  seven  he  will  look 
about  him,  and  see  who  remains,  and,  if  he  then  at  all  likes  the 
party,  he  will  be  very  civil  and  communicative.  He  exactly 
fulfilled  what  my  friend  had  prophesied.  Mrs.  Davies1 2  did  the 
honours  of  the  table  :  she  was  a  favourite  with  Johnson,  who  sat 
betwixt  her  and  Dr.  Harwood ;  I  sat  next,  below,  to  Mr.  Boswell 
opposite.  Nobody  could  bring  Johnson  forward  more  civilly  or 
properly  than  Davies.  The  subject  of  conversation  turned  upon 
the  tragedy  of  CE dipus 3.  This  was  particularly  interesting  to 
me,  as  I  was  then  employed  in  endeavouring  to  make  such 
alterations  in  Dryden’s  play  4,  as  to  make  it  suitable  to  a  revival 
at  Drury  Lane  theatre.  Johnson  did  not  seem  to  think 
favourably  of  it ;  but  I  ventured  to  plead,  that  Sophocles 
wrote  it  expressly  for  the  theatre,  at  the  public  cost,  and  that 
it  was  one  of  the  most  celebrated  dramas  of  all  antiquity. 
Johnson  said,  *  CEdipus  was  a  poor  miserable  man,  subjected  to 
the  greatest  distress,  without  any  degree  of  culpability  of  his 
own.’  I  urged,  that  Aristotle,  as  well  as  most  of  the  Greek 
poets,  were  [sic]  partial  to  this  character ;  that  Addison  considered 
that,  as  terror  and  pity  were  particularly  excited,  he  was  the 
properest5 - here  Johnson  suddenly  becoming  loud,  I  paused, 


1  ‘When  at  table  he  was  totally 
absorbed  in  the  business  of  the 
moment ;  his  looks  seemed  rivetted 
to  his  plate ;  nor  would  he,  unless 
when  in  very  high  company,  say  one 
word,  or  even  pay  the  least  attention 
to  what  was  said  by  others,  till  he 
had  satisfied  his  appetite.’  Ifc, 
i.  468. 

2  lb.  i.  391,  n.  2,  484. 

‘  I  am  strongly  affected  by  Mrs. 
Davies’s  tenderness,’  Johnson  wrote 
to  her  husband.  Ib.  iv.  231. 

3  ‘  I  introduced  ’  (writes  Boswell) 

‘Aristotle’s  doctrine  in  his  Art  of 
Poetry ,  of  “  the  Kadapais  tcov  Tradr)- 

paTcov,  the  purging  of  the  passions,” 
as  the  purpose  of  tragedy.  “  But 
how  are  the  passions  to  be  purged 
by  terrour  and  pity  ?  said  I,  with  an 
assumed  air  of  ignorance,  to  incite 


him  to  talk,  for  which  it  was  often 
necessary  to  employ  some  address.”’ 
Ib.  iii.  39.  Boswell  does  not  mention 
any  talk  about  CEdipus. 

4  ‘  CEdi-pzis  is  a  tragedy  formed  by 
Dryden  and  Lee  in  conjunction,  from 
the  works  of  Sophocles,  Seneca  and 
Corneille.  Dryden  planned  the 
scenes  and  composed  the  first  and 
third  acts.’  Johnson’s  Works ,  vii. 
269. 

5  Addison  quotes  Aristotle’s  obser¬ 
vation — ‘if  we  see  a  man  of  virtue, 
mixt  with  infirmities,  fall  into  any 
misfortune,  it  does  not  only  raise  our 
pity,  but  our  terror ;  because  we  are 
afraid  that  the  like  misfortune  may 
happen  to  ourselves,  who  resemble 
the  character  of  the  suffering  person.’ 
The  Spectator,  No.  273.  See  also 
ib.  No.  297. 


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Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


63 


and  rather  apologized  that  it  might  not  become  me,  perhaps, 
too  strongly  to  contradict  Dr.  Johnson.  ‘Nay,  Sir/  replied  he, 
hastily,  ‘  if  I  had  not  wished  to  have  heard  your  arguments, 
I  should  not  have  disputed  with  you  at  all.’  All  went  on  quite 
pleasantly  afterwards.  We  sat  late,  and  something  being  men¬ 
tioned  about  my  going  to  Bath,  when  taking  leave,  Johnson  very 
graciously  said,  ‘  I  should  have  a  pleasure  in  meeting  you  there  V 
Either  Boswell  or  Davies  immediately  whispered  to  me.  ‘You’re 
landed1  2.’ 


The  next  time  I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  him  was  at  the 
Literary  Club  dinner  at  the  coffee-house  in  St.  James’s  Street3, 
to  which  I  was  introduced  by  my  partial  friend,  Dr.  Percy. 
Johnson  that  day  was  not  in  very  good  humour.  We  rather 
waited  for  dinner.  Garrick  came  late,  and  apologized  that  he 
had  been  to  the  House  of  Lords,  and  Lord  Camden  insisted 
on  conveying  him  in  his  carriage4.  Johnson  said  nothing,  but 
he  looked  a  volume.  The  party  was  numerous.  I  sat  next 
Mr.  Burke  at  dinner.  There  was  a  beef-steak  pie  placed  just 
before  us ;  and  I  remarked  to  Mr.  Burke  that  something  smelt 
very  disagreeable,  and  looked  to  see  if  there  was  not  a  dog 
under  the  table.  Burke  with  great  good  humour  said,  ‘  I  believe, 
Sir,  I  can  tell  you  what  is  the  cause  ;  it  is  some  of  my  country 


1  Three  days  later  Johnson  went  to 
Bath  with  the  Thrales.  Letters ,  i.  391. 

2  ‘  My  record  upon  this  occasion 
does  great  injustice  to  Johnson’s  ex¬ 
pression,  which  was  so  forcible  and 
brilliant,  that  Mr.  Cradock  whispered 
me,  “  O  that  his  words  were  written 
in  a  book  !  ”  ’  Life ,  iii.  39. 

When,  thirteen  years  earlier,  Bos¬ 
well  was  introduced  to  Johnson  in  the 
same  parlour,  Davies  said  to  him,  as 
he  was  leaving,  ‘Don’t  be  uneasy. 
I  can  see  he  likes  you  very  well.’ 
Jb.  i.  395. 

3  Croker  says  that  to  this  club  no 
stranger  is  ever  invited.  Croker’s 
Boswell,  ix.  237  n.  It  met  for  some 
time  at  Parsloe’s,  St.  James’s  Street. 

4  £  I  told  Johnson  ’  (writes  Boswell) 
*  that  one  morning,  when  I  went  to 


breakfast  with  Garrick,  who  was  very 
vain  of  his  intimacy  with  Lord  Cam¬ 
den,  he  accosted  me  thus  : — “  Pray 
now,  did  you — did  you  meet  a  little 
lawyer  turning  the  corner,  eh?” — 
“  No,  Sir,  (said  I.)  Pray  what  do 
you  mean  by  the  question  ?  ” — “  Why, 
(replied  Garrick,  with  an  affected  in¬ 
difference,  yet  as  if  standing  on  tip¬ 
toe,)  Lord  Camden  has  this  moment 
left  me.  We  have  had  a  long  walk 
together.”  Johnson.  “Well,  Sir, 
Garrick  talked  very  properly.  Lord 
Camden  was  a  little  lawyer  to  be 
associating  so  familiarly  with  a 
player.”  ’  Life ,  iii.  31 1. 

‘  Lord  Camden,’  Bentham  said, 
‘  was  a  hobbledy-hoy,  and  had  no 
polish  of  manners.’  Bentham’s 
Works ,  x.  1 1 8. 


butter 


64 


Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


butter  in  the  crust  that  smells  so  disagreeably.’  Dr.  Johnson 
just  at  this  time,  sitting  opposite,  desired  one  of  us  to  send  him 
some  of  the  beef-steak  pie.  We  sent  but  little,  which  he  soon 
dispatched,  and  then  returned  his  plate  for  more.  Johnson 
particularly  disliked  that  any  notice  should  be  taken  of  what 
he  eat1,  but  Burke  ventured  to  say  he  was  glad  to  find  that 
Dr.  Johnson  was  anywise  able  to  relish  the  beef-steak  pie. 
Johnson,  not  perceiving  what  he  alluded  to,  hastily  exclaimed, 
4  Sir,  there  is  a  time  of  life  when  a  man  requires  the  repairs  of  the 
table  !  ’  The  company  rather  talked  for  victory  than  social 
intercourse.  I  think  it  was  in  consequence  of  what  passed  that 
evening,  that  Dr.  Goldsmith  wrote  his  Retaliation 2.  Mr.  Richard 
Burke  was  present,  talked  most,  and  seemed  to  be  the  most  free 
and  easy  of  any  of  the  company3.  I  had  never  met  him 
before.  Burke  seemed  desirous  of  bringing  his  relative  forward. 
In  Mr.  Chalmers’s  account  of  Goldsmith,  different  sorts  of  liquor 
are  offered  as  appropriate  to  each  guest.  To  the  two  Burkes 
ale  from  Wicklow,  and  wine  from  Ferney  to  me :  my  name  is  in 
italics,  as  supposing  I  am  a  wine-bibber ;  but  the  author’s 
allusion  to  the  wines  of  Ferney  was  meant  for  me,  I  rather  think, 
from  my  having  taken  a  plan  of  a  tragedy  from  Voltaire. 


Mrs.  Percy,  afterwards  nurse  to  the  Duke  of  Kent4,  at 
Buckingham  House,  told  me  that  Johnson  once  stayed  near 
a  month  with  them  at  their  dull  parsonage  at  Easton  Mauduit 5 ; 
that  Dr.  Percy  looked  out  all  sorts  of  books  to  be  ready 


1  Boswell  says  that  on  their  tour 
to  the  Highlands  he  contrived  ‘  that 
Dr.  Johnson  should  not  be  asked 
twice  to  eat  or  drink  anything 
(which  always  disgusts  him).’  Life , 
v.  264. 

2  Cradock  first  met  Johnson  in 
1776,  more  than  two  years  after 
Goldsmith’s  death.  Such  a  blunder 
as  this  shows  that  not  much  trust 
can  be  placed  in  his  anecdotes.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  Cumberland  (Memoirs,  i. 
369)  it  was  at  the  St.  James’s  Coffee 
House  that  the  dinner  took  place 
which  led  to  Retaliation . 

3  Edmund  Burke’s  brother,  ‘  honest 


Richard/  thus  described  in  Retalia¬ 
tion  : — 

‘  What  spirits  were  his  !  what  wit 
and  what  whim  ! 

Now  breaking  a  jest,  and  now 
breaking  a  limb  ! 

Now  wrangling  and  grumbling  to 
keep  up  the  ball ! 

Now  teasing  and  vexing,  yet  laugh¬ 
ing  at  all !  ’ 

4  Letters ,  i.  414,  n.  2.  The  Duke  of 
Kent  was  the  father  of  QueenVictoria. 

5  Johnson  spent  with  the  Percies 
part  of  June,  July,  and  August  of 
1764.  Life ,  i.  486,  and  post  in  Percy’s 
Anecdotes.  ‘  The  little  terrace  in  the 

for 


Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


65 


for  his  amusement  after  breakfast,  and  that  Johnson  was  so 
attentive  and  polite  to  her,  that,  when  Dr.  Percy  mentioned  the 
literature  proposed  in  the  study,  he  said,  ‘  No,  Sir,  I  shall  first 
wait  upon  Mrs.  Percy  to  feed  the  ducks.’  But  those  halcyon 
days  were  about  to  change, — not  as  to  Mrs.  Percy,  for  to  the 
last  she  remained  a  favourite  with  him. 


I  happened  to  be  in  London  once  when  Dr.  Percy  returned 
from  Northumberland,  and  found  that  he  was  expected  to 
preach  a  charity  sermon  almost  immediately.  This  had  escaped 
his  memory,  and  he  said,  that,  though  much  fatigued,  he  had 
been  obliged  to  sit  up  very  late  to  furnish  out  something  from 
former  discourses;  but,  suddenly  recollecting  that  Johnson’s 
fourth  Idler  was  exactly  to  his  purpose,  he  had  freely  engrafted 
the  greatest  part  of  it.  He  preached,  and  his  discourse  was  much 
admired ;  but  being  requested  to  print  it,  he  most  strenuously 
opposed  the  honour  intended  him,  till  he  was  assured  by  the 
governors,  that  it  was  absolutely  necessary,  as  the  annual  con¬ 
tributions  greatly  depended  on  the  account  that  was  given  in 
the  appendix.  In  this  dilemma,  he  earnestly  requested  that  I 
would  call  upon  Dr.  Johnson,  and  state  particulars.  I  assented, 
and  endeavoured  to  introduce  the  subject  with  all  due  solemnity; 
but  Johnson  was  highly  diverted  with  his  recital,  and,  laughing, 
said,  ‘  Pray,  Sir,  give  my  kind  respects  to  Dr.  Percy,  and  tell 
him,  I  desire  he  will  do  whatever  he  pleases  in  regard  to  my 
Idler ;  it  is  entirely  at  his  service  k5 


garden  [of  the  vicarage]  is  still  called 
Dr.  Johnson’s  walk.’  Wheatley’s 
Percy’s  Reliques ,  i.  Preface,  p.  75. 

Miss  Burney  wrote  in  1781  or 
1782  : — ‘  Mrs.  Percy  is  a  vulgar,  fus- 
socking,  proud  woman  ;  but  very  civil 
to  us.  Miss  Percy  is  among  the  very 
well!  Early  Diary  of  F.  Burney ,  ii. 
297.  In  1791  she  wrote  : — ‘Mrs.Percy 
is  very  uncultivated  and  ordinary 
in  manners  and  conversation,  but  a 
good  creature,  and  much  delighted 
to  talk  over  the  Royal  Family,  to  one 
of  whom  she  was  formerly  a  nurse. 
Miss  Percy  is  a  natural  and  very 
pleasing  character.’  Mme.  D’Arblay’s 

VOL.  II. 


Diary,  v.  256.  It  was  Miss  Percy 
whom,  when  a  little  girl,  Johnson  set 
down  from  his  knee,  telling  her  that 
he  did  not  care  one  farthing  for  her 
as  she  had  not  read  Pilgrim's  Pro¬ 
gress.  Life ,  ii.  238,  n.  5. 

1  This  sermon,  I  have  no  doubt, 
was  the  one  preached  before  the  Sons 
of  the  Clergy  on  May  11,  1769; 
published  by  J.  and  F.  Rivington,  a 
copy  of  which  is  in  the  Bodleian 
Library.  Johnson’s  thoughts  are 
borrowed,  but  not  his  words. 

This  sermon  was  preached  seven 
years  before  Cradock  first  met 
Johnson. 


But 


66 


Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


But  these  days  of  friendly  communication  were,  from  various 
causes,  speedily  to  pass  away,  and  worse  than  indifference  to 
succeed ;  for,  one  morning  Dr.  Percy  said  to  Mr.  Cradock, 
‘  I  have  not  seen  Dr.  Johnson  for  a  long  time.  I  believe  I  must 
just  call  upon  him,  and  greatly  wish  that  you  would  accompany 
me.  I  intend,’  said  he,  4  to  tease  him  a  little  about  Gibbon’s 
pamphlet.’  4 1  hope  not,  Dr.  Percy,’  was  my  reply.  4  Indeed 
I  shall ;  for  I  have  a  great  pleasure  in  combating  his  narrow 
prejudices.’  We  went  together;  and  Dr.  Percy  opened  with 
some  anecdote  from  Northumberland  House  *,  mentioned  some 
rare  books  that  were  in  the  library ;  and  then  threw  out  that  the 
town  rang  with  applause  of  Gibbon’s  Reply  to  Davis ;’  that 
the  latter  ‘had  written  before  he  had  read,’  and  that  the  two 
4  confederate  doctors,’  as  Mr.  Gibbon  termed  them,  4  had  fallen 
into  some  strange  errors2.’  Johnson  said,  he  knew  nothing  of 


1  He  had  an  apartment  in  North¬ 
umberland  House,  4  in  which,’  says 
Boswell,  4 1  have  passed  many  an 
agreeable  hour.’  Life ,  iii.  420,  n.  5. 

2  H.  E.  Davis,  a  Bachelor  of  Arts 
of  Oxford,  published  in  1778  An 
Examination  of  the  \$th  and  16th 
Chapters  of  Mr.  Gibbon's  History. 
Gibbon,  in  A  Vindication ,  answered 
at  the  same  time  the  attacks  of  two 
Doctors  of  Divinity — Randolph  and 
Chelsum.  He  describes  how,  4  op¬ 
pressed  with  the  same  yoke,  covered 
with  the  same  trappings,  they  heavily 
move  along,  perhaps  not  with  an 
equal  pace,  in  the  same  beaten  track 
of  prejudice  and  preferment.  ...  It 
was  the  misfortune  of  Mr.  Davis  that 
he  undertook  to  write  before  he 
had  read.  But  the  two  confederate 
doctors  appear  to  be  scholars  of  a 
higher  form  and  longer  experience  ; 
they  enjoy  a  certain  rank  in  their 
academical  world  ;  and  as  their  zeal 
is  enlightened  by  some  rays  of  know¬ 
ledge,  so  their  desire  to  ruin  the 
credit  of  their  adversary  is  occasion¬ 
ally  checked  by  the  apprehension  of 


injuring  their  own.’  Gibbon’s  Misc. 
Works,  iv.  604. 

Gibbon,  in  his  Autobiography  (ib. 
i.  231)  writes  : — 4  At  the  distance  of 
twelve  years  I  calmly  affirm  my 
judgment  of  Davis,  Chelsum,  &c. 
A  victory  over  such  antagonists  was 
a  sufficient  humiliation.  They,  how¬ 
ever,  were  rewarded  in  this  world. 
Poor  Chelsum  was,  indeed,  neglected 
.  .  .  but  I  enjoyed  the  pleasure  of 
giving  a  royal  pension  to  Mr.  Davis.’ 
Lb.  i.  231. 

Horace  Walpole  wrote  to  Gibbon 
(Letters,  vii.  158): — ‘Davis  and  his 
prototypes  tell  you  Middleton,  &c. 
have  used  the  same  objections,  and 
they  have  been  confuted j  answering, 
in  the  theologic  dictionary,  signifying 
confuting.' 

4  How  utterly,’  wrote  Macaulay, 
‘all  the  attacks  on  Gibbon’s  History 
are  forgotten !  this  of  Whitaker  ; 
Randolph’s  ;  Chelsum’s  ;  Davies’s  ; 
that  stupid  beast  Joseph  Milner’s; 
even  Watson’s.’  Trevelyan’s  Mac¬ 
aulay,  ed.  1877,  ii.  285. 


Davis's 


Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


67 


Davis’s  pamphlet,  nor  would  he  give  him  any  answer  as  to 
Gibbon ;  but,  if  the  {  confederate  doctors,’  as  they  were  termed, 
had  really  made  such  mistakes  as  he  had  alluded  to,  they  were 
blockheads.  Dr.  Percy  talked  on  in  the  most  careless  style 
possible,  but  in  a  very  lofty  tone1;  and  Johnson  appeared  to 
be  excessively  angry.  I  only  wished  to  get  released  :  for,  if 
Dr.  Percy  had  proceeded  to  inform  him  that  he  had  lately  intro¬ 
duced  Mr.  Hume  to  dine  at  the  King’s  chaplains’  table,  there 
must  have  been  an  explosion 2. 


Afterwards  Percy  rather  loftily  mentioned  that  he  knew  that 
the  Duke  of  Northumberland  would  have  a  pleasure  in  lending 
him  any  books  from  his  library.  ‘And  if  the  offer  is  made, 
Sir,’  Johnson  only  coldly  replied,  ‘  from  a  good  motive  it  is  very 
well ;  ’  and  some  time  after,  turning  to  me,  said  with  a  sigh : 

‘  Many  offer  me  crusts  now,  but  I  have  no  teeth  to  bite  them.’ 

« 

With  all  my  partiality  for  Johnson,  I  freely  declare,  that 
I  think  Dr.  Percy  received  very  great  cause  to  take  real  offence 
at  one,  who,  by  a  ludicrous  parody  on  a  stanza  in  the  Hermit  of 


W arkworth,  had  rendered  him 

1  If  this  story  is  true  a  strange  and 
sudden  change  had  come  over  Percy. 

It  was  less  than  a  year  earlier  that 
Boswell’s  ‘  friendly  scheme  ’  obtained 
for  him  from  Johnson  a  letter  of  ex¬ 
planation  of  which  he  said : — ‘  I  would 
rather  have  this  than  degrees  from 
all  the  Universities  in  Europe.’  In 
it  Johnson  wrote  : — ‘  Percy  is  a  man 
whom  I  never  knew  to  offend  any 
one.’  Life ,  iii.  276,  278. 

2  Gibbon’s  Vindication  is  dated 
Feb.  3,  1779;  Hume  died  on  Aug. 
25,  1776.  Percy,  writing  to  Hume 
in  1772,  describes  himself  ‘as  not 
unknown  to  you  when  you  resided 
in  London.’  Letters  of  Eminent 
Persons  to  David  Hume ,  p.  317. 

Gibbon,  who  belonged  to  the 
Literary  Club,  was  disliked  by  John¬ 
son  and  Boswell.  ‘J°hnson  talked 
with  some  disgust  of  his  ugliness  ’ ; 


contemptible.  It  was  urged, 

while  Boswell  wrote  of  him  : — ‘  He 
is  an  ugly,  affected,  disgusting  fellow, 
and  poisons  our  Literary  Club  to 
me.’  Life ,  iv.  73.  Malone,  writing 
on  Feb.  20,  1794,  about  the  loss  of 
Gibbon  to  the  club  by  death,  says  : — 
1  Independent  of  his  literary  merit, 
as  a  companion  Gibbon  was  un¬ 
commonly  agreeable.  He  had  an 
immense  fund  of  anecdote  and  of 
erudition  of  various  kinds,  both 
ancient  and  modern  ;  and  had  ac¬ 
quired  such  a  facility  and  elegance  of 
talk  that  I  had  always  great  pleasure 
in  listening  to  him.  The  manner  and 
voice,  though  they  were  peculiar, 
and  I  believe  artificial  at  first,  did 
not  at  all  offend,  for  they  had  become 
so  appropriated  as  to  appear  natural.’ 
Hist.  MSS.  Com.,  Thirteenth  Report, 
App.  viii.  230. 


that 


68 


Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


that  Johnson  only  meant  to  attack  the  metre ;  but  he  certainly 
turned  the  whole  poem  into  ridicule  :  — 

1 1  put  my  hat  upon  my  head, 

And  walk’d  into  the  Strand, 

And  there  I  met  another  man 
With  his  hat  in  his  hand1.’ 

Mr.  Garrick,  in  a  letter  to  me,  soon  afterwards  asked  me, 
‘  Whether  I  had  seen  J ohnson’s  criticism  on  the  Hermit ;  it  is 
already,’  said  he,  ‘  over  half  the  town.’  Almost  the  last  time 
that  I  ever  saw  Johnson,  he  said  to  me, ‘  Notwithstanding  all  the 
pains  that  Dr.  Farmer  and  I  took  to  serve  Dr.  Percy,  in  regard 
to  his  Ancient  Ballads ,  he  has  left  town  for  Ireland  2,  without 
taking  leave  of  either  of  us.’ 


Admiral  Walsingham,  who  sometimes  resided  at  Windsor, 
and  sometimes  in  Portugal  Street,  frequently  boasted  that  he 
was  the  only  man  to  bring  together  miscellaneous  parties,  and 
make  them  all  agreeable  ;  and,  indeed,  there  never  before  was 
so  strange  an  assortment  as  I  have  occasionally  met  there.  At 
one  of  his  dinners  were  the  Duke  of  Cumberland  3,  Dr.  Johnson, 


1  The  Hermit  was  published  in 
1771.  There  is  no  stanza  of  which 
this  is  a  close  parody,  so  far  as  the 
words  are  concerned.  The  nearest 
is  the  third  : — 

‘  With  hospitable  haste  he  rose, 
And  wak’d  his  sleeping  fire  ; 

And  snatching  up  a  lighted  brand 
Forth  hied  the  reverend  sire.’ 

2  Percy  was  made  Bishop  of  Dro- 
more  in  1782.  According  to  Dr. 
Anderson  {Life  of  Johnson ,  3rd  ed., 
p.  252),  ‘  Percy  from  a  high  sense  of 
duty  constantly  resided  there.  The 
episcopal  palace,  which  none  of  his 
predecessors  had  inhabited,  and  the 
demesne,  formerly  rude  and  un¬ 
cultivated,  owe  to  him  their  magnifi¬ 
cence  and  picturesque  beauty.’ 

3  ‘  It  is  possible,’  writes  Mr.  Croker, 
‘Dr.  Johnson  may  have  been  ac¬ 
quainted  with  the  Hon.  Robert  Boyle, 


who  took  the  name  of  Walsingham  ; 
but  it  is  hardly  possible  that  Dr. 
Johnson  should  have  met  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland  at  dinner  without 
Mr.  Boswell’s  having  mentioned  it.’ 
Croker’s  Boswell ,  ix.  242  n.  Mr. 
Croker  forgets  that  there  are  men 
who  can  dine  with  a  Duke  and  not 
boast  of  it. 

‘  Having  observed  the  vain  osten¬ 
tatious  importance  of  many  people 
in  quoting  the  authority  of  Dukes 
and  Lords,  as  having  been  in  their 
company,  Dr.  Johnson  said,  he  went 
to  the  other  extreme,  and  did  not 
mention  his  authority  when  he  should 
have  done  it,  had  it  noi  been  of  a 
Duke  or  a  Lord.’  Life ,  iv.  183. 
Boswell  accused  him  of  making  ‘but 
an  awkward  return  ’  in  leaving  in  his 
Lives  of  the  Poets  ‘  an  acknowledge¬ 
ment  unappropriated  to  his  Grace,’ 

Mr. 


Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


69 


Mr.  Nairn,  the  optician1,  and  Mr.  Leoni,  the  singer:  at  another, 
Dr.  Johnson,  &c.,  and  a  young  dashing  officer,  who  determined, 
he  whispered,  to  attack  the  old  bear  that  we  seemed  all  to  stand 
in  awe  of.  There  was  a  good  dinner,  and  during  that  important 
time  Johnson  was  deaf  to  all  impertinence.  However,  after  the 
wine  had  passed  rather  freely,  the  young  gentleman  was  resolved 
to  bait  him,  and  venture  out  a  little  further.  ‘  Now,  Dr.  John¬ 
son,  do  not  look  so  glum,  but  be  a  little  gay  and  lively,  like 
others :  what  would  you  give,  old  gentleman,  to  be  as  young 
and  sprightly  as  I  am?’  ‘  Why,  Sir/  said  he,  ‘  I  think  I  would 
almost  be  content  to  be  as  foolish  V 


Johnson,  it  is  well  known,  professed  to  recruit  his  acquaintance 
with  younger  persons 3,  and,  in  his  latter  days,  I,  with  a  few 
others,  were  [sic]  more  frequently  honoured  by  his  notice.  At 
times  he  was  very  gloomy,  and  would  exclaim,  ‘  Stay  with  me, 
for  it  is  a  comfort  to  me’ — a  comfort  that  any  feeling  mind 
would  wish  to  administer  to  a  man  so  kind,  though  at  times  so 
boisterous,  when  he  seized  your  hand,  and  repeated, c  Ay,  Sir,  but 
to  die  and  go  we  know  not  where4/  &c. — here  his  morbid  melan¬ 
choly  prevailed,  and  Garrick  never  spoke  so  impressively  to  the 
heart.  Yet,  to  see  him  in  the  evening  (though  he  took  nothing 
stronger  than  lemonade 5),  a  stranger  would  have  concluded  that 
our  morning  account  was  a  fabrication.  No  hour  was  too  late 


the  Duke  of  Newcastle.  Life ,  iv.  63. 
Neither  Boswell  nor  any  of  Johnson’s 
biographers  knew  of  his  second  inter¬ 
view  with  the  king.  Ib.  ii.  42,  n.  2. 

The  Admiral  must,  indeed,  have 
been  happy  in  his  son,  for  Mr.  Croker 
says  : — ‘  I  have  heard  George  IV 
speak  most  highly  of  this  young 
Boyle  Walsingham.’  Walpole’s  Let- 
ters,  viii.  502  n. 

1  In  the  Gentleman' s  Magazine , 
1774,  p.  472,  is  an  account  of  ‘  Elec¬ 
trical  Experiments  by  Mr.  Edward 
Nairne,  made  with  a  Machine  of  his 
own  Workmanship.’  The  writer  says, 
‘  the  discharges  of  an  electrical  battery 
at  ducks,  cocks,  and  turkeys,  however 


curious  to  electricians,  are  painful  to 
the  humane.’ 

2  In  a  book  entitled  Lord  Chester¬ 
field'' s  Witticisms ,  1774,  p.  53,  this 
story  is  assigned  to  Quin. 

3  ‘  He  said  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
“  If  a  man  does  not  make  new  ac¬ 
quaintance  as  he  advances  through 
life,  he  will  soon  find  himself  left 
alone.  A  man,  Sir,  should  keep  his 
friendship  in  constant  refiair .”  ’  Life, 
i.  300. 

4  Ante ,  i.  439. 

5  Seefosi,  p.  100,  where ‘about  five 
in  the  morning  Johnson’s  face  shone 
with  meridian  splendour,  though  his 
drink  had  been  only  lemonade.’ 


to 


70 


Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


to  keep  him  from  the  tyranny  of  his  own  gloomy  thoughts. 
A  gentleman  venturing  to  say  to  Johnson,  ‘  Sir,  I  wonder  some¬ 
times  that  you  condescend  so  far  as  to  attend  a  city  club.’  ‘  Sir, 
the  great  chair  of  a  full  and  pleasant  club  is,  perhaps,  the  throne 
of  human  felicity1.’ 

I  had  not  the  honour  to  be  at  all  intimate  with  Johnson  till 
about  the  time  he  began  to  publish  his  Lives  of  the  Poets  ;  and 
how  he  got  through  that  arduous  labour  is,  in  some  measure, 
still  a  mystery  to  me  :  he  must  have  been  greatly  assisted  by 
booksellers 2.  I  had  some  time  before  lent  him  Euripides  with 
Milton’s  manuscript  notes :  this,  though  he  did  not  minutely 
examine  (see  Joddrel’s  Euripides\  yet  he  very  handsomely  re¬ 
turned  it,  and  mentioned  it  in  his  Life  of  Milton 3.  In  the 
course  of  conversation  one  day  I  dropped  out  to  him,  that  Lord 
Harborough  (then  the  Rev.4)  was  in  possession  of  a  very  valu¬ 
able  collection  of  manuscript  poems,  and  that  amongst  them 
there  were  two  or  three  in  the  handwriting  of  King  James  I ; 
that  they  were  bound  up  handsomely  in  folio,  and  were  entitled 
Sackville's  Poems .  These  he  solicited  me  to  borrow  for  him, 
and  Lord  Harborough  very  kindly  intrusted  them  to  me  for 
his  perusal. 

Harris’s  Hermes  was  mentioned.  I  said,  ‘  I  think  the  book 
is  too  abstruse ;  it  is  heavy.’  ‘It  is ;  but  a  work  of  that  kind 


1  Cradock  misquotes  Hawkins 
(post,  p.  91) — ‘A  tavern  chair  is 
the  throne  of  human  felicity.’  See 
also  Life ,  ii.  452. 

2  Cradock,  I  suppose,  means  that 
they  lent  him  books,  and  supplied 
him  with  facts,  and  not  as  Mr.  Croker 
thinks  (ix.  243  n.)  that  they  assisted 
him  in  his  manuscript.  Thus  he 
writes  to  John  Nichols  desiring  that 
‘  some  volumes  published  of  Prior’s 
papers  in  two  vols.  8vo.  may  be  pro¬ 

cured.’  Letters ,  ii.  130.  Another 

day  he  writes: — ‘Mr.  Johnson  is 
obliged  to  Mr.  Nicol  [sic]  for  his 


communication,  and  must  have  Ham¬ 
mond  again.  Mr.  Johnson  would  be 
glad  of  Blackmore’s  Essays  for  a  few 
days.’  Ib.  ii.  159. 

3  ‘HisEuripidesisby  Mr.Cradock’s 
kindness  now  in  my  hands  ;  the  mar¬ 
gin  is  sometimes  noted,  but  I  have 
found  nothing  remarkable.’  Works , 
vii.  1 14. 

4  When  Johnson  was  writing  the 
Lives  the  Rev.  Robert  Sherard  was 
Earl  of  Harborough,  for  it  was  in 
1770  that  he  succeeded  his  brother, 
who,  in  spite  of  marrying  four  times, 
left  no  heir.  Burke’s  Peerage. 


must 


Anecdotes  by  Joseph  Cradock. 


7i 


must  be  heavy  V  ‘A  rather  dull  man  of  my  acquaintance  asked 
me,’  said  I,  ‘to  lend  him  some  book  to  entertain  him,  and 
I  offered  him  Harris’s  Hermes ,  and  as  I  expected,  from  the  title, 
he  took  it  for  a  novel ;  when  he  returned  it,  I  asked  him  how  he 
liked  it,  and,  what  he  thought  of  it?  “Why,  to  speak  the  truth,” 
says  he,  “  I  was  not  much  diverted  ;  I  think  all  these  imitations 
of  Tristram  Shandy  fall  far  short  of  the  original !’”  This  had  its 
effect,  and  almost  produced  from  Johnson  a  rhinocerous  laugh1 2. 


One  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  rudest  speeches  was  to  a  pompous 
gentleman  coming  out  of  Lichfield  cathedral,  who  said,  ‘  Dr. 
Johnson,  we  have  had  a  most  excellent  discourse  to-day  !’  ‘That 
may  be,’  said  Johnson ;  *  but,  it  is  impossible  that  you  should 
know  it.’ 

Of  his  kindness  to  me  during  the  last  years  of  his  most 
valuable  life,  I  could  enumerate  many  instances.  One  slight 
circumstance,  if  any  were  wanting,  would  give  an  excellent  proof 
of  the  goodness  of  his  heart,  and  that  to  a  person  whom  he 
found  in  distress.  In  such  a  case  he  was  the  very  last  man  that 
would  have  given  even  the  least  momentary  uneasiness  to  any 
one,  had  he  been  aware  of  it.  The  last  time  I  saw  him  was  just 
before  I  went  to  France.  He  said,  with  a  deep  sigh,  ‘  I  wish 
I  was  going  with  you.’  He  had  just  then  been  disappointed  of 
going  to  Italy3.  Of  all  men  I  ever  knew,  Dr.  Johnson  was  the 
most  instructive. 


1  Ante,  i.  187. 

‘  For  my  own  part,  I  like  Harris’s 
writings  much.  But  Tooke  thought 
meanly  of  them  :  he  would  say,  “Lord 
Malmesbury  is  as  great  a  fool  as  his 
father  ”  [Harris  was  the  father  of  the 
first  Earl  of  Malmesbury]/  Rogers’s 
Table  Talk ,  p.  128. 

2  ‘Johnson’s  laugh  was  a  kind  of 

good-humoured  growl.  Tom  Davies 


described  it  drolly  enough :  “  He 
laughs  like  a  rhinoceros.’”  Life , 
ii.  378. 

3  Cradock  started  for  Italy  on 
Oct.  29,  1783.  Johnson  was  dis¬ 
appointed  of  going  there  in  1776. 
Life ,  iii.  27.  There  was  some  project 
of  his  going  in  1780  and  1781  ( Let¬ 
ters ,  ii.  191),  and  again  in  1784. 
Life,  iv.  326. 


ANECDOTES 

BY  RICHARD  CUMBERLAND 


[From  Memoirs  of  Richard  Cumberland,  written  by  himself. 
2  vols.  London,  1807. 

Johnson,  writing  to  Mrs.  Thrale,  who  was  at  Brighton,  says  : — 
c  The  want  of  company  is  an  inconvenience,  but  Mr.  Cumberland 
is  a  million.’  Letters ,  ii.  111.  There  is  nothing  in  Boswell  to 
show  that  Cumberland  was  much  with  Johnson.  Northcote  told 
Hazlitt  that  Johnson  and  his  friends  ‘never  admitted  him  as  one 
of  the  set ;  Sir  Joshua  did  not  invite  him  to  dinner.’  Conversations 
of  Northcote,  p.  385. 

Rogers  described  him  as  ‘  a  most  agreeable  companion,  and 
a  very  entertaining  converser.  His  theatrical  anecdotes  were 
related  with  infinite  spirit  and  humour/  Rogers’s  Table  Talk , 
p.  136. 

‘  I  once  (says  W.  Maltby)  dined  at  Dilly’s  with  Parr, 
Priestley,  Cumberland,  and  some  other  distinguished  people. 
Cumberland,  who  belonged  to  the  family  of  the  Blandishes,  be- 
praised  Priestley  to  his  face,  and  after  he  had  left  the  party  spoke 
of  him  very  disparagingly.  This  excited  Parr’s  extremest  wrath. 
When  I  met  him  a  few  days  after  he  said : — ‘  Only  think  of 
Mr.  Cumberland !  that  he  should  have  presumed  to  talk  before 
me , — before  me,  Sir — in  such  terms  of  my  friend  Dr.  Priestley  ! 
Pray,  Sir,  let  Mr.  Dilly  know  my  opinion  of  Mr.  Cumberland — 
that  his  ignorance  is  equalled  only  by  his  impertinence,  and  that 
both  are  exceeded  by  his  malice.’  Ib.  p.  314. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  thus  writes  of  Cumberland: — ‘January  12, 
1826. — Mathews  last  night  gave  us  a  very  perfect  imitation  of 

old 


Anecdotes  by  Richard  Cumberland. 


73 


old  Cumberland,  who  carried  the  poetic  jealousy  and  irritability 
farther  than  any  man  I  ever  saw.  He  was  a  great  flatterer,  too, 
the  old  rogue.  ...  A  very  high-bred  man  in  point  of  manners  in 
society.’  Lockhart’s  Scotty  ed.  1839,  viii.  193. 

In  his  Biographical  Memoirs  (ed.  1834,  iii.  227)  Scott  adds  : 
‘  In  the  little  pettish  sub-acidity  of  temper  which  Cumberland 
sometimes  exhibited  there  was  more  of  humorous  sadness  than 
of  ill-will,  either  to  his  critics  or  his  contemporaries.  .  .  .  These 
imperfections  detract  nothing  from  the  character  of  the  man  of 
worth,  the  scholar  and  the  gentleman.’ 

For  his  jealousy  see  Letters ,  ii.  112,  115,  122.  His  grave  in 
Westminster  Abbey  is  close  to  Johnson’s. 

His  anecdotes  must  be  received  with  great  distrust.  His 
account  of  the  dinner  before  the  first  night  of  She  Stoops  to 
Conquer ,  at  which  Johnson  took  the  chair,  is  so  manifestly 
‘a  romance’ — to  use  Mr.  Forster’s  words — that  I  have  not 
quoted  it.  See  Cumberland’s  Memoirs ,  i.  367,  and  Forster’s 
Goldsmith,  ed.  1871^  ii.  339.] 


Who  will  say  that  Johnson  himself  would  have  been  such 
a  champion  in  literature,  such  a  front-rank  soldier  in  the  fields 
of  fame,  if  he  had  not  been  pressed  into  the  service,  and  driven 
on  to  glory  with  the  bayonet  of  sharp  necessity  pointed  at  his 
back  ?  If  fortune  had  turned  him  into  a  field  of  clover,  he  would 
have  laid  down  and  rolled  in  it.  The  mere  manual  labour  of 


writing  would  not  have  allowec 
have  taken  the  pen  out  of  the 

1  ‘  I  allow  (said  Johnson)  you  may 
have  pleasure  from  writing,  after  it 
is  over,  if  you  have  written  well ; 
but  you  don’t  go  willingly  to  it 
again.’  Life ,  iv.  219. 

*  There  is  not  a  more  painful  action 
of  the  mind  than  invention.’  Addison 
in  The  Spectator ,  No.  487. 

‘  His  ditty  sweet 

He  loathed  much  to  write,  ne 
cared  to  repeat.’ 

Castle  of  Indolence,  canto  i.  stanza  68. 

‘  Reading,  Mr.  Gray  has  often  told 
me,  was  much  more  agreeable  to  him 


his  lassitude  and  love  of  ease  to 
inkhorn  x,  unless  the  cravings  of 

than  writing.’  Mason’s  Gray,  ii.  25. 

‘ 1  am,’  wrote  Hume  to  Strahan, 
‘perhaps  the  only  author  you  ever 
knew  who  gratuitously  employed 
great  industry  in  correcting  a  work 
of  which  he  has  fully  alienated 
the  property.’  Letters  of  Hume  to 
Strahan,  p.  183. 

Of  Pope,  Johnson  wrote: — ‘To 
make  verses  was  his  first  labour, 
and  to  mend  them  was  his  last.  .  .  . 
He  was  one  of  those  few  whose 
labour  is  their  pleasure.’  Works, 
viii.  321.  See  also  post,  p.  90. 

hunger 


74 


Anecdotes  by  Richard  Cumberland. 


hunger  had  reminded  him  that  he  must  fill  the  sheet  before  he 
saw  the  table  cloth.  He  might  indeed  have  knocked  down 
Osbourne  for  a  blockhead,  but  he  would  not  have  knocked  him 
down  with  a  folio  of  his  own  writing  *.  He  would  perhaps  have 
been  the  dictator  of  a  club,  and  wherever  he  sat  down  to  con¬ 
versation,  there  must  have  been  that  splash  of  strong  bold 
thought  about  him,  that  we  might  still  have  had  a  collectanea 
after  his  death  ;  but  of  prose  I  guess  not  much,  of  works  of  labour 
none,  of  fancy  perhaps  something  more,  especially  of  poetry, 
which,  under  favour,  I  consider  was  not  his  tower  of  strength. 
I  think  we  should  have  had  his  Rasselas  at  all  events,  for  he 
was  likely  enough  to  have  written  at  Voltaire,  and  brought 
the  question  to  the  test,  if  infidelity  is  any  aid  to  wit1  2. 
An  orator  he  must  have  been ;  not  improbably  a  parliamen¬ 
tarian,  and,  if  such,  certainly  an  oppositionist,  for  he  preferred 
to  talk  against  the  tide.  He  would  indubitably  have  been  no 
member  of  the  Whig  Club,’ no  partisan  of  Wilkes,  no  friend  of 
Hume,  no  believer  in  Macpherson ;  he  would  have  put  up 
prayers  for  early  rising,  and  laid  in  bed  all  day,  and  with  the 
most  active  resolutions  possible  been  the  most  indolent  mortal 
living.  (Volume  i.  p.  353.) 

Alas !  I  am  not  fit  to  paint  his  character :  nor  is  there 
need  of  it ;  Etiam  mortnus  loquitur 3:  every  man,  who  can  buy 
a  book,  has  bought  a  Boswell ;  Johnson  is  known  to  all  the 
reading  world.  I  also  knew  him  well,  respected  him  highly, 
loved  him  sincerely:  it  was  never  my  chance  to  see  him  in 
those  moments  of  moroseness  and  ill  humour,  which  are  im¬ 
puted  to  him,  perhaps  with  truth,  for  who  would  slander  him  ? 
But  I  am  not  warranted  by  any  experience  of  those  humours  to 
speak  of  him  otherwise  than  of  a  friend,  who  always  met  me 
with  kindness,  and  from  whom  I  never  separated  without  regret. 
— When  I  sought  his  company  he  had  no  capricious  excuses  for 
withholding  it,  but  lent  himself  to  every  invitation  with  cordiality, 
and  brought  good  humour  with  him,  that  gave  life  to  the  circle 

1  Ante ,  i.  304,  381.  dide.  Life ,  i.  342  ;  Letters ,  i.  79  n. 

2  Cumberland  wrongly  thought  3  ‘  He  being  dead  yet  speaketh.’ 

that  Rasselas  was  an  answer  to  Can -  Heb.  xi.  4. 


he 


Anecdotes  by  Richard  Cumberland. 


75 


he  was  in.  He  presented  himself  always  in  his  fashion  of 
apparel ;  a  brown  coat  with  metal  buttons,  black  waistcoat 
and  worsted  stockings,  with  a  flowing  bob  wig 1  was  the  style  of 
his  wardrobe,  but  they  were  in  perfectly  good  trim 2,  and  with 
the  ladies,  which  he  generally  met,  he  had  nothing  of  the 
slovenly  philosopher  about  him  ;  he  fed  heartily,  but  not  vora¬ 
ciously3,  and  was  extremely  courteous  in  his  commendations  of 
any  dish  that  pleased  his  palate ;  he  suffered  his  next  neigh¬ 
bour  to  squeeze  the  China  oranges4  into  his  wine  glass  after 
dinner,  which  else  perchance  had  gone  aside,  and  trickled  into 
his  shoes,  for  the  good  man  had  neither  straight  sight  nor  steady 
nerves. 

At  the  tea  table  he  had  considerable  demands  upon  his 
favourite  beverage,  and  I  remember  when  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
at  my  house  reminded  him  that  he  had  drank  eleven  cups,  he 
replied — {  Sir,  I  did  not  count  your  glasses  of  wine 5,  why  should 
you  number  up  my  cups  of  tea?’  And  then  laughing  in  perfect 
good  humour  he  added — ‘  Sir,  I  should  have  released  the  lady 


1  Johnson  defines  a  bobwig  as  a 
short  wig,  so  that  flowing  seems  an 
inconsistent  epithet. 

2  Cumberland  could  only  have 
known  him  after  his  dress  had  been 
improved  by  associating  with  the 
Thrales.  Life ,  iii.  325.  Johnson 
seems  to  show  how  regardless  he 
was  of  dress  by  his  note  on  King 
John ,  Act  iv.  sc.  2,  where  Hubert 
describes  a  smith, 

‘  Standing  on  slippers,  which  his 
nimble  haste 

Had  falsely  thrust  upon  contrary 
feet.’ 

On  this  Johnson  remarks  : — 
‘  Shakespeare  seems  to  have  con¬ 
founded  a  man’s  shoes  with  his 
gloves.  He  that  is  frighted  or  hurried 
may  put  his  hand  into  the  wrong 
glove,  but  either  shoe  will  equally 
admit  either  foot.  The  authour  seems 
to  be  disturbed  by  the  disorder  which 
he  describes.’  J ohnson’s  slippers  were 
his  old  shoes.  Life ,  i.  396 ;  ii.  406. 


3  This  is  at  variance  with  the  ac¬ 
counts  of  Boswell  {Life,  i.  468  ;  iv.  72) 
and  Hawkins  {post,  p.  105). 

‘Violent  hunger,  though  upon 
many  occasions  not  only  natural, 
but  unavoidable,  is  always  indecent, 
and  to  eat  voraciously  is  universally 
regarded  as  a  piece  of  ill  manners.’ 
Adam  Smith’s  Moral  Sentiments , 
ed.  1801,  i.  45. 

4  Life ,  ii.  330. 

s  Johnson  wrote  on  Jan.21, 1775: — 
‘  Reynolds  has  taken  too  much  to 
strong  liquor,  and  seems  to  delight 
in  his  new  character.’  Life ,  ii.  292. 
‘Sir  Joshua.  “You  have  sat  by 
quite  sober,  and  felt  an  envy  of  the 
happiness  of  those  who  were  drink¬ 
ing.”  Johnson.  “Perhaps  con¬ 
tempt.’”  Ib.  iii.  41.  ‘Sir  Joshua. 
“  At  first  the  taste  of  wine  was  dis¬ 
agreeable  to  me  ;  but  I  brought  my¬ 
self  to  drink  it,  that  I  might  be  like 
other  people.’  Ib.  iii.  329. 


from 


?6 


Anecdotes  by  Richard  Cumberland. 


from  any  further  trouble,  if  it  had  not  been  for  your  remark  ; 
but  you  have  reminded  me  that  I  want  one  of  the  dozen,  and 
I  must  request  Mrs.  Cumberland  to  round  up  my  number — ” 
When  he  saw  the  readiness  and  complacency  with  which  my 
wife  obeyed  his  call,  he  turned  a  kind  and  cheerful  look  upon 
her  and  said — ‘Madam,  I  must  tell  you  for  your  comfort  you 
have  escaped  much  better  than  a  certain  lady  did  awhile  ago, 
upon  whose  patience  I  intruded  greatly  more  than  I  have  done 
on  yours ;  but  the  lady  asked  me  for  no  other  purpose  but  to 
make  a  Zany  of  me,  and  set  me  gabbling  to  a  parcel  of  people 
I  knew  nothing  of ;  so,  Madam,  I  had  my  revenge  of  her ;  for 
I  swallowed  five  and  twenty  cups  of  her  tea x,  and  did  not  treat 
her  with  as  many  words.’  I  can  only  say  my  wife  would  have 
made  tea  for  him  as  long  as  the  New  River  could  have  supplied 
her  with  water. 

It  was  on  such  occasions  he  was  to  be  seen  in  his  happiest 
moments ;  when  animated  by  the  cheering  attention  of  friends, 
whom  he  liked,  he  would  give  full  scope  to  those  talents  for 
narration,  in  which  I  verily  think  he  was  unrivalled  both  in  the 
brilliancy  of  his  wit,  the  flow  of  his  humour,  and  the  energy  of 
his  language.  Anecdotes  of  times  past,  scenes  of  his  own  life, 
and  characters  of  humourists,  enthusiasts,  crack-brained  pro¬ 
jectors  and  a  variety  of  strange  beings,  that  he  had  chanced 
upon,  when  detailed  by  him  at  length,  and  garnished  with  those 
episodical  remarks,  sometimes  comic,  sometimes  grave,  which 
he  would  throw  in  with  infinite  fertility  of  fancy,  were  a  treat, 
which  though  not  always  to  be  purchased  by  five  and  twenty 
cups  of  tea,  I  have  often  had  the  happiness  to  enjoy  for  less 
than  half  the  number.  He  was  easily  led  into  topics 2 ;  it  was 


1  The  number  of  the  cups  no  doubt 
grew  in  the  stories  about  Johnson. 
Lord  Eldon  said  that  his  wife  ‘  had 
herself  helped  him  one  evening  to 
fifteen  cups.’  Twiss’s  Eldon ,  ed.  1846, 
i.  65.  See  post ,  p.  105,  n.  4,  for 
Lady  Macleod’s  helping  him  to  six¬ 
teen.  Cumberland,  at  one  bold  leap, 
raises  the  number  to  twenty-five. 
For  the  price  of  tea  see  ante ,  i.  135. 
A  South  Carolinian  lady  whose  sons 


were  at  school  in  England  wrote  to 
a  friend  in  1759: — ‘At  Whitsuntide 
they  used  to  make  the  housekeeper 
[of  the  school]  the  present  of  a  guinea 
for  a  pound  of  tea.’  Eliza  Pinckney , 
by  H.  H.  Ravenel,  New  York,  1896, 
p.  181. 

2  For  Johnson’s  not  starting  a  sub¬ 
ject  of  talk  see  ante ,  i.  290 ;  Life ,  iii. 
30 7,  2 ;  iv.  304,  n.  4. 


not 


Anecdotes  by  Richard  Cumberland. 


11 


not  easy  to  turn  him  from  them  ;  but  who  would  wish  it  ?  If 
a  man  wanted  to  show  himself  off  by  getting  up  and  riding  upon 
him,  he  was  sure  to  run  restive  and  kick  him  off ;  you  might  as 
safely  have  backed  Bucephalus,  before  Alexander  had  lunged1  him. 
Neither  did  he  always  like  to  be  over-fondled ;  when  a  certain 
gentleman  out-acted  his  part  in  this  way,  he  is  said  to  have 
demanded  of  him — ‘  What  provokes  your  risibility,  Sir  ?  Have 
I  said  anything  that  you  understand? — Then  I  ask  pardon  of 
the  rest  of  the  company — ’  But  this  is  Henderson’s  anecdote 
of  him,  and  I  won’t  swear  he  did  not  make  it  himself2.  The 
following  apology  however  I  myself  drew  from  him,  when  speak¬ 
ing  of  his  tour  I  observed  to  him  upon  some  passages  as  rather 
too  sharp  upon  a  country  and  people  who  had  entertained  him 
so  handsomely — ‘Do  you  think  so,  Cumbey3 4?’  he  replied. — 
‘  Then  I  give  you  leave  to  say,  and  you  may  quote  me  for  it, 
that  there  are  more  gentlemen  in  Scotland  than  there  are 
shoes  V 


The  expanse  of  matter,  which  Johnson  had  found  room  for  in 
his  intellectual  storehouse,  the  correctness  with  which  he  had 
assorted  it,  and  the  readiness  with  which  he  could  turn  to  any 
article  that  he  wanted  to  make  present  use  of5  were  the  pro¬ 
perties  in  him  which  I  contemplated  with  the  most  admiration. 
Some  have  called  him  a  savage ;  they  were  only  so  far  right  in 
the  resemblance,  as  that,  like  the  savage,  he  never  came  into 
suspicious  company  without  his  spear  in  his  hand  and  his  bow 
and  quiver  at  his  back.  In  quickness  of  intellect  few  ever 
equalled  him,  in  profundity  of  erudition  many  have  surpassed 
him.  I  do  not  think  he  had  a  pure  and  classical  taste,  nor  was 
apt  to  be  best  pleased  with  the  best  authors6,  but  as  a  general 


1  To  lunge  is  not  in  Johnson’s 
Dictionary. 

2  Cumberland  tells  it  also  in  his 
Observer ,  No.  25.  See  Life ,  iv.  64, 
n.  2.  John  Henderson,  the  actor, 
no  doubt  is  meant,  who,  as  a  mimic, 
‘  did  not  represent  Johnson  correctly.5 
Life,  ii.  326,  n.  5. 

3  For  Johnson’s  abbreviations  of 
his  friends’  names  see  Life ,  ii.  258. 

4  At  Elgin  he  noted  that  ‘  a  very 


great  proportion  of  the  people  are 
barefoot.’  Letters ,  i.  239. 

5  ‘  Sir  Joshua  observed  to  me  the 
extraordinary  promptitude  with  which 
Johnson  flew  upon  an  argument.’ 
Life ,  ii.  365. 

6  Mrs.  Carter’s  father  wrote  to  her 
of  Johnson  in  1738  : — ‘  I  a  little  sus¬ 
pect  his  judgment  if  he  is  very  fond 
of  Martial.5  Pennington’s  Carter , 
i-  39- 


scholar 


?8 


Anecdotes  by  Richard  Cumberland . 


scholar  he  ranks  very  high.  When  I  would  have  consulted  him 
upon  certain  points  of  literature,  whilst  I  was  making  my  collec¬ 
tions  from  the  Greek  dramatists  for  my  essays  in  The  Observer , 
he  candidly  acknowledged  that  his  studies  had  not  lain  amongst 
them,  and  certain  it  is  there  is  very  little  shew  of  literature  in 
his  Ramblers ,  and  in  the  passage,  where  he  quotes  Aristotle,  he 
has  not  correctly  given  the  meaning  of  the  original J.  (Volume  i. 

P-  356-) 


r  Rambler ,  No.  139. 


EXTRACTS 

FROM  SIR  JOHN  HAWKINS’S  LIFE 

OF  JOHNSON 


-4-4- 


[ACCORDING  to  Miss  Hawkins  [Memoirs,  i.  15^)  Strahan  and 
Cadell  called  on  her  father,  in  the  name  of  the  booksellers,  4  who 
meant  to  collect  and  publish  Johnson’s  works,  and  had  com¬ 
missioned  them  to  ask  him  to  write  the  Life ,  and  to  oversee  the 
whole  publication.  They  offered  him  £100' 

For  Boswell’s  account  of  Hawkins’s  book  see  Life ,  i.  26. 

‘Sir  John  Hawkins  was  originally  bred  a  lawyer,  in  which 
profession  he  did  not  succeed.  Having  married  a  gentlewoman 
who  by  her  brother’s  death  proved  a  considerable  fortune  he 
bought  a  house  at  Twickenham,  intending  to  give  himself  up 
to  his  studies  and  music,  of  which  he  was  very  fond.  He  now 
commenced  a  justice  of  peace ;  and  being  a  very  honest  moral 
man,  but  of  no  brightness,  and  very  obstinate  and  contentious, 
he  grew  hated  by  the  lower  class  and  very  troublesome  to  the 
gentry,  with  whom  he  went  to  law  both  on  public  and  private 
causes ;  at  the  same  time  collecting  materials  indefatigably  for 
a  History  of  Music.’  Horace  Walpole’s  Journal  of  the  Reign 
of  George  III ,  i.  421. 

Horace  Walpole,  writing  on  Dec.  3,  1776,  of  Hawkins’s  History 
of  Music,  says  ( Letters ,  vi.  395): — ‘I  have  been  three  days  at 
Strawberry  and  have  not  seen  a  creature  but  Sir  John  Hawkins’s 
five  volumes,  the  two  last  of  which,  thumping  as  they  are, 
I  literally  did  read  in  two  days.  They  are  old  books  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  very  old  books  ;  and  what  is  new  is  like 
old  books  too,  that  is,  full  of  minute  facts  that  delight  anti¬ 
quaries.  .  .  .  My  friend,  Sir  John,  is  a  matter-of-fact-man,  and 

does 


8o 


Extracts  from 


does  now  and  then  stoop  very  low  in  quest  of  game.  Then 
he  is  so  exceedingly  religious  and  grave  as  to  abhor  mirth, 
except  it  is  printed  in  the  old  black  letter,  and  then  he  calls  the 
most  vulgar  ballad  pleasant  and  full  of  humour.  He  thinks 
nothing  can  be  sublime  but  an  anthem,  and  Handel’s  choruses 
heaven  upon  earth.  However  he  writes  with  great  moderation, 
temper  and  good  sense,  and  the  book  is  a  very  valuable  one. 
I  have  begged  his  Austerity  to  relax  in  one  point,  for  he  ranks 
comedy  with  farce  and  pantomime.  Now  I  hold  a  perfect 
comedy  to  be  the  perfection  of  human  composition,  and  believe 
firmly  that  fifty  Iliads  and  ^Dneids  could  be  written  sooner  than 
such  a  character  as  Falstaff’s.’ 

On  Feb.  28,  1782,  Walpole  wrote  to  Mason  [lb.  viii.  169): — 
‘  I  am  sorry  you  will  fall  on  my  poor  friend  Sir  John,  who  is 
a  most  inoffensive  and  good  being.  Do  not  wound  harmless 
simpletons,  you  who  can  gibbet  convicts  of  magnitude.’  Mason 
replied  that  ‘  Hawkins  has  shown  himself  petulant  and  imper¬ 
tinent  in  several  parts  of  his  history,  and  especially  on  the 
subject  of  honest  John  Gay.’  Ib.  p.  170. 

Bentham,  speaking  of  about  the  year  1767,  said: — ‘  I  liked  to 
go  to  Sir  John  Hawkins’ :  he  used  to  talk  to  me  of  his  quarrels, 
and  he  was  always  quarrelling.  He  had  a  fierce  dispute  with 
Dr.  Hawkesworth,  who  wrote  the  Adventurer  and  managed  the 
Gentleman' s  Magazine ,  which  he  called  his  Dragon.  He  had 
a  woman  in  his  house  with  red  hair ;  and  this  circumstance, 
of  which  Hawkins  availed  himself,  gave  him  much  advantage  in 
the  controversy.  Hawkins  was  alway  tormenting  me  with  his 
disputatious  correspondence  ;  always  wondering  how  there  could 
be  so  much  depravity  in  human  nature ;  yet  he  was  himself 
a  good-for-nothing  follow,  haughty  and  ignorant,  picking  up 
little  anecdotes  and  little  bits  of  knowledge.  He  was  a  man  of 
sapient  look.’ 

‘  Dr.  Percy  (writes  Malone)  concurred  with  every  other  person 
I  have  heard  speak  of  Hawkins,  in  saying  that  he  was  a  most 
detestable  fellow.  Dyer  knew  him  well  at  one  time,  and  the  Bishop 
heard  him  give  a  character  of  Hawkins  once  that  painted  him  in 
the  blackest  colours.  Dyer  said  that  he  knew  instances  of  his 
setting  a  husband  against  a  wife,  and  a  brother  against  a  brother ; 

fomenting 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


81 


fomenting  their  animosity  by  anonymous  letters.  I  had  some 
conversation  with  Sir  J.  Reynolds  relative  to  both  Hawkins  and 
Dyer.  He  observes  that  Hawkins,  though  he  assumed  great 
outward  sanctity,  was  not  only  mean  and  grovelling  in  disposi¬ 
tion,  but  absolutely  dishonest.  After  the  death  of  Dr.  Johnson, 
he,  as  one  of  his  executors,  laid  hold  of  his  watch  and  several 
trinkets,  coins,  &c.,  which  he  said  he  should  take  to  himself  for  his 
trouble.  Sir  Joshua  and  Sir  Wm.  Scott,  the  other  executors, 
remonstrated  against  this,  and  with  great  difficulty  compelled  him 
to  give  up  the  watch,  which  Dr.  Johnson’s  servant,  Francis 
Barber,  now  has ;  but  the  coins  and  old  pieces  of  money  they 
could  never  get.  The  executors  had  several  meetings  relative 
to  the  business  of  their  trust.  Hawkins  was  paltry  enough  to 
bring  them  in  a  bill,  charging  his  coach  hire  for  every  time 
they  met.  With  all  this  meanness,  if  not  dishonesty,  he  was 
a  regular  churchman,  assuming  the  character  of  a  most  rigid 
and  sanctimonious  censurer  of  the  lightest  foibles  of  others.  He 
never  lived  in  any  real  intimacy  with  Dr.  Johnson,  who  never 
opened  his  heart  to  him,  or  had  in  fact  any  accurate  knowledge 
of  his  character.’  Prior’s  Malone ,  p.  426. 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  perhaps  had  Hawkins  in  his  mind 
when  he  said  that  ‘Johnson  appeared  to  have  little  suspicion  of 
hypocrisy  in  religion.’  Life>  i.  418,  n. 

That  the  two  men  were  not  intimate  is  confirmed  by  Boswell’s 
statement,  who  says: — ‘I  never  saw  Sir  John  Hawkins  in 
Dr.  Johnson’s  company  I  think  but  once,  and  I  am  sure  not 
above  twice.  Johnson  might  have  esteemed  him  for  his  decent, 
religious  demeanour  and  his  knowledge  of  books  and  literary 
history ;  but  from  the  rigid  formality  of  his  manners  it  is  evident 
that  they  never  could  have  lived  together  with  companionable 
ease  and  familiarity.’  Life ,  i.  27. 

Johnson  himself  said  of  him: — e  As  to  Sir  John,  why  really 
I  believe  him  to  be  an  honest  man  at  the  bottom ;  but  to  be 
sure  he  is  penurious,  and  he  is  mean,  and  it  must  be  owned  he 
has  a  degree  of  brutality,  and  a  tendency  to  savageness,  that 
cannot  easily  be  defended.’  Mme.  D’Arblay’s  Diary ,  i.  65. 

The  story  of  the  watch  got  abroad,  and  was  thus  sarcastically 
dealt  with  by  Porson  in  the  Gentleman  s  Magazine  for  Sept.  1787, 

VOL.  II.  G  p.  751 


82 


Extracts  from 


p.  752  (Porson’s  Tracts ,  p.  342) : — ‘  In  the  Life  [by  Hawkins], 
p.  460,  461,  we  have  an  ample  description  of  a  watch  that 
Johnson  bought  for  seventeen  guineas;  but,  just  as  we  expect 
some  important  consequence  from  this  solemn  introduction,  the 
history  breaks  off,  and  suddenly  opens  another  subject.  Now, 
Mr.  Urban,  some  days  ago  I  picked  up  a  printed  octavo  leaf, 
seemingly  cancelled  and  rejected.  It  was  so  covered  with  mud 
and  dirt  that  I  could  only  make  out  part  of  it,  which  I  here  send 
you,  submitting  it  to  better  judgment,  whether  this  did  not 
originally  fill  the  chasm  that  every  reader  of  taste  and  feeling 
must  at  once  perceive  in  the  history  of  the  watch.  It  is  more 
difficult  to  find  a  reason  why  it  was  omitted.  But  I  am  per¬ 
suaded  that  the  person  who  is  the  object  of  Sir  John’s  satire  was 
so  hurt  at  the  home  truths  contained  in  it;  that  he  tampered  with 
the  printers  to  have  it  suppressed. 


Fragment. 

. 6  And  here,  touching  this  watch  already  by  me 

mentioned,  I  insert  a  notable  instance  of  the  craft  and  selfishness 
of  the  Doctor’s  Negro  servant.  A  few  days  after  that  whereon 
Dr.  Johnson  died,  this  artful  fellow  came  to  me,  and  surrendered 
the  watch,  saying  at  the  same  time,  that  his  master  had  delivered 
it  to  him  a  day  or  two  before  his  demise,  with  such  demeanour 
and  gestures  that  he  did  verily  believe  it  was  his  intention  that 
he,  namely  Frank,  should  keep  the  same.  Myself  knowing  that 
no  sort  of  credit  was  due  to  a  black  domestic  and  favourite 
servant,  and  withal  considering  that  the  wearing  thereof  would 
be  more  proper  for  myself,  and  that  I  had  got  nothing  by  my 
trust  of  executor  save  sundry  old  books,  arid  coach-hire  for 
journeys  during  the  discharge  of  the  said  office ;  and  further 
reflecting  on  what  I  have  occasion  elsewhere  to  mention,  viz. 
that,  since  the  abolishing  general  warrants,  temp.  Geo.  Hi1,  no 


1  On  April  30,  1763,  Wilkes  had 
been  arrested  on  ‘  a  general  warrant 
directed  to  four  messengers  to  take 
up  any  persons  without  naming  or 
describing  them  with  any  certainty, 
and  to  bring  them,  together  with  their 


papers.’  Such  a  warrant  as  this 
Chief  Justice  Pratt  (Lord  Camden) 
declared  to  be  ‘unconstitutional,  il¬ 
legal,  and  absolutely  void.’  The 
messengers  ‘  broke  open  every  closet, 
bureau,  and  drawer  in  Mr.  Wilkes’s 

good 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


83 


good  articles  in  this  branch  can  be  had  any  longer  in  England, 
I  took  the  watch  from  him,  intending  to  have  it  appraised  by 
my  own  jeweller,  a  very  honest  and  expert  artificer,  and,  in  so 
doing,  to  have  bought  it  as  cheap  as  I  could  for  myself,  let  it 
cost  what  it  would.  Upon  my  signifying  this  my  intention  to 
Frank,  the  impudent  Negro  said,  “  he  plainly  saw  there  was  no  good 
intended  for  him  1 ;  ”  and  in  anger  left  me.  He  then  posted  to 
my  colleagues,  the  other  executors ;  and  there  being  in  the 
people  of  this  country  a  general  propensity  to  humanity,  notwith¬ 
standing  all  my  exertions  to  counteract  the  same  both  in  writing 2 
and  otherwise ;  this  being  the  case,  I  say,  he  had  found  means  to 
prepossess  them  so  entirely  in  his  favour  that  they  snubbed  me, 
and  insisted  with  me  that  I  should  make  restitution.  Finally, 
though  perhaps  I  should  not  have  been  made  amenable  to  any 
known  judicature  by  keeping  the  watch,  I  consented,  being  com¬ 
pelled  thereto,  to  let  this  worthless  fellow  retain  that  testimony 
of  his  masters  ill-directed  benevolence  in  extremis  V 

Malone  wrote  to  Lord  Charlemont  on  Nov.  7,  1787: — ‘You 
perhaps  have  not  heard  of  a  very  curious  fact.  Sir  John  wanted 
to  cheat  poor  Frank,  Johnson’s  servant,  of  a  gold  watch  and  cane, 
and  Frank,  not  choosing  to  lose  them,  from  that  time  became 
as  black  again  as  he  was  before.’  Hist.  MSS.  Com .,  Thirteenth 
Report,  App.  viii.  62.] 


There  dwelt  at  Lichfield  a  gentleman  of  the  name  of  Butt, 
the  father  of  the  reverend  Mr.  Butt,  now  a  King’s  Chaplain4,  to 
whose  house  on  holidays  and  in  school-vacations  Johnson  was 
ever  welcome.  The  children  in  the  family,  perhaps*  offended 
with  the  rudeness  of  his  behaviour,  would  frequently  call  him 


house.’  Porson  implies  that  in  such 
a  search  as  this  a  man’s  watch  might 
be  carried  off.  See  Annual  Register , 
1763,  i.  135  ;  Almon’s  Memoirs  of 
Wilkes ,  i.  107  ;  Boswell’s  Johnson ,  ii. 
72,  and  Letters  of  Hume  to  Strahan , 
p.  207. 

1  A  quotation  from  Hawkins,  p. 
604  n. 


2  ‘See  Sir  John’s  proofs  that  every 
prisoner  ought  to  be  convicted,  and 
every  convict  hanged.  Ib.  pp.  52 1— 3-’ 
Note  by  Porson. 

3  A  quotation  from  Hawkins,  pp. 
599)  605. 

4  A  Rev.  Mr.  Butt  attended  John¬ 
son’s  funeral.  Letters  ii.  434. 


G  2 


the 


84 


Extracts  from 


the  great  boy,  which  the  father  once  overhearing,  said,  ‘you 
call  him  the  great  boy,  but  take  my  word  for  it,  he  will  one 
day  prove  a  great  man  V 

A  more  particular  character  of  him  while  a  schoolboy,  and  of 
his  behaviour  at  school,  I  find  in  a  paper  now  before  me,  written 
by  a  person  yet  living1  2 *,  and  of  which  the  following  is  a  copy : 

‘  Johnson  and  I  were,  in  early  life,  school-fellows  at  Lichfield, 
and  for  many  years  in  the  same  class.  As  his  uncommon 
abilities  for  learning  far  exceeded  us,  we  endeavoured  by  every 
boyish  piece  of  flattery  to  gain  his  assistance,  and  three  of  us, 
by  turns,  used  to  call  on  him  in  a  morning,  on  one  of  whose 
backs,  supported  by  the  other  two,  he  rode  triumphantly  to 
school.  He  never  associated  with  us  in  any  of  our  diversions, 
except  in  the  winter  when  the  ice  was  firm,  to  be  drawn  along 
by  a  boy  barefooted.  His  ambition  to  excel  was  great,  though 
his  application  to  books,  as  far  as  it  appeared,  was  very  trifling. 
I  could  not  oblige  him  more  than  by  sauntering  away  every 
vacation,  that  occurred,  in  the  fields,  during  which  time  he  was 
more  engaged  in  talking  to  himself  than  his  companion.  Verses 
or  themes  he  would  dictate  to  his  favourites,  but  he  would  never 
be  at  the  trouble  of  writing  them.  His  dislike  to  business  was 
so  great,  that  he  would  procrastinate  his  exercises  to  the  last 


1  Percy,  writing  of  Johnson  at  Stour¬ 
bridge  School,  says  : — £  Here  his 
genius  was  so  distinguished  that,  al¬ 
though  little  better  than  a  school-boy, 
he  was  admitted  into  the  best  com¬ 
pany  of  the  place,  and  had  no  common 
attention  paid  to  his  conversation  ; 
of  which  remarkable  instances  were 
long  remembered  there.’  Anderson’s 
Johnson ,  ed.  1815,  p.  20. 

2  Edmund  Hector.  Life ,  i.  47. 

Boswell  recorded  in  his  note-book 

in  March,  1776  : — 4  Mr.  Hector, 
surgeon  at  Birmingham,  who  was 
at  school  with  him,  and  used  to  buy 
tarts  with  him  of  Dame  Reid,  told 
me  that  he  had  the  same  extra¬ 
ordinary  superiority  over  the  boys  of 
the  same  age  with  himself  that  he 


has  now  over  men.  That  he  seemed 
to  learn  by  intuition  the  contents  of 
any  book,  that  the  boys  submitted 
to  him,  and  paid  him  great  respect. 
.  .  .  That  he  used  to  have  oatmeal 
porridge  for  breakfast.  That  his 
father  was  a  very  sensible  man,  and 
very  successful  as  a  bookseller  and 
stationer — used  to  open  a  shop  once 
a  week  at  Birmingham  ;  but  was  a 
loser  by  a  manufacture  of  parchment 
which  he  set  up.  That  his  mother 
was  a  very  remarkable  woman  for 
good  understanding.  I  asked  him 
if  she  was  not  vain  of  her  son,  Mr. 
Hector  said  she  had  too  much  good 
sense  to  be  vain,  but  she  knew  her 
son’s  value.’  M orris  o?i  Autographs , 
2nd  Series,  i.  368. 


hour 


Hawkins’s  Life  of  Johnson. 


85 


hour.  I  have  known  him  after  a  long  vacation,  in  which  we  were 
rather  severely  tasked  x,  return  to  school  an  hour  earlier  in  the 
morning,  and  begin  one  of  his  exercises,  in  which  he  purposely 
left  some  faults,  in  order  to  gain  time  to  finish  the  rest. 

I  never  knew  him  corrected  at  school,  unless  it  was  for  talking 
and  diverting  other  boys  from  their  business,  by  which,  perhaps, 
he  might  hope  to  keep  his  ascendancy.  He  was  uncommonly 
inquisitive,  and  his  memory  so  tenacious,  that  whatever  he  read 
or  heard  he  never  forgot.  I  remember  rehearsing  to  him  eighteen 
verses,  which  after  a  little  pause  he  repeated  verbatim,  except 
one  epithet,  which  improved  the  line. 

After  a  long  absence  from  Lichfield,  when  he  returned  I  was 
apprehensive  of  something  wrong  in  his  constitution2,  which 
might  either  impair  his  intellect  or  endanger  his  life,  but,  thanks 
to  Almighty  God,  my  fears  have  proved  false.’  (Page  6.) 

[When  Johnson  was  at  Pembroke  College3]  the  want  of  that 
assistance,  which  scholars  in  general  derive  from  their  parents, 
relations,  and  friends,  soon  became  visible  in  his  garb  and  appear¬ 
ance,  which,  though  in  some  degree  concealed  by  a  scholar’s 
gown,  and  that  we  know  is  never  deemed  the  less  honourable 
for  being  old,  was  so  apparent  as  to  excite  pity  ip  some  that 
saw  and  noticed  him.  He  had  scarce  any  change  of  raiment, 
and,  in  a  short  time  after  Corbet 4  left  him,  but  one  pair  of 
shoes,  and  those  so  old,  that  his  feet  were  seen  through  them : 
a  gentleman  of  his  college,  the  father  of  an  eminent  clergyman 
now  living,  directed  a  servitor  one  morning  to  place  a  new  pair 


1  Ante,  i.  161.  2  Life ,  i.  63. 

3  Johnson  matriculated  on  Oct.  31, 
1728,  and  no  doubt  received  from 
the  Vice-Chancellor  a  document 
similar  to  the  following,  which  is 
pasted  in  at  the  end  of  a  copy  of 
Parecbolce  sive  Excerpta  e  corpo?'e 
Statutorum  Universitatis  Oxoniensis. 
It  was  shown  me  by  Mr.  Viner 
Ellis,  a  descendant  of  Johnson’s  con¬ 
temporary  at  Pembroke  to  whom  it 
had  been  given. 

‘  Oxoniae.  Dec.  14.  Anno  Domini 
1727. 


‘  Quo  die  comparuit  coram  me 
Joshua  Ellis  e  Coll  Pembr  generosi 
fil  et  subscripsit  Articulis  Fidei,  et 
Religionis  ;  et  juramentum  suscepit 
de  agnoscenda  suprema  Regiae  Majes- 
tatis  potestate ;  et  de  observandis 
Statutis,  Privilegiis  et  Consuetudini- 
bus  hujus  Universitatis. 

‘Jo.  Mather,  Vice-Can.’ 

William  Pitt  entered  Trinity  Col¬ 
lege  on  Jan.  10,  172^.  Gentleman' s 
Magazine ,  1784,  p.  5. 

4  Life,  i.  58 ;  ante ,  i.  362. 


at 


86 


Extracts  from 


at  the  door  of  Johnson’s  chamber,  who,  seeing  them  upon  his 
first  going  out,  so  far  forgot  himself  and  the  spirit  that  must 
have  actuated  his  unknown  benefactor,  that,  with  all  the  in¬ 
dignation  of  an  insulted  man,  he  threw  them  away x.  (Page  10.) 

In  this  course  of  learning,  his  favourite  objects  were  classical 
literature,  ethics,  and  theology,  in  the  latter  whereof  he  laid  the 
foundation  by  studying  the  Fathers2.  If  we  may  judge  from 
the  magnitude  of  his  Adversaria,  which  I  have  now  by  me 3,  his 


x  Life ,  i.  77. 

Johnson’s  difficulties  no  doubt  were 
increased  by  the  general  dearness 
during  his  residence  at  College.  The 
year  in  which  he  entered,  1728,  wheat 
stood  higher  than  it  did  in  a  period 
of  more  than  fifty  years.  1729  also 
was  a  dear  year.  Wealth  of  Nations, 
ed.  1811,  i.  359.  See  ante ,  i.  129, 
n .  1. 

2  ‘  He  told  me  what  he  read  solidly 
at  Oxford  was  Greek ;  .  .  .  that  the 
study  of  which  he  was  the  most  fond 
was  Metaphysicks,  but  he  had  not 
read  much  even  in  that  way.’  Life , 
i.  70. 

Boswell  recorded  in  his  note¬ 
book: — ‘Ashbourne,  20  Sept.  1 777. 
Dr.  Johnson  told  me  that  he  had 
been  always  idle.  That  his  most 
determinate  application  had  been 
within  these  ten  years  in  reading 
Greek.  That  the  reading  which  he 
had  loved  most  was  metaphysicks ; 
but  that  he  had  not  read  much  even 
in  that  way.  That  he  very  early 
loved  to  read  poetry,  but  hardly  ever 
read  any  poem  to  an  end.  That  he 
read  in  Shakespeare  at  a  very  early 
time  of  life,  so  early  that  he  remem¬ 
bers  being  afraid  to  read  the  speech 
of  the  Ghost  in  Hamlet  when 
alone.  That  Horace’s  Odes  have 
been  the  composition  in  which  he 
has  taken  most  delight.’  Morrison 
Autografihs,  2nd  Series,  i.  372.  For 
his  Greek  see  ante ,  i.  183. 


3  See  Life,  i.  205,  and  post,  p.  129, 
where  Hawkins  was  detected  in 
pocketing  two  volumes  in  Johnson’s 
handwriting.  Some  volumes  he  either 
secreted,  or  Johnson  neglected  to 
destroy,  when  he  burnt  his  private 
papers  ;  for  Hawkins  not  only  had 
these  Adversaria,  but  other  volumes 
of  a  much  more  private  nature,  which 
he  thus  describes:  ‘To  enable  him 
at  times  to  review  his  progress  in 
life,  and  to  estimate  his  improvement 
in  religion,  he,  in  the  year  1734,  be¬ 
gan  to  note  down  the  transactions  of 
each  day,  recollecting,  as  well  as  he 
was  able,  those  of  his  youth,  and 
interspersing  such  reflections  and 
resolutions  as,  under  particular  cir¬ 
cumstances,  he  was  induced  to  make. 
This  register,  which  he  intitled 
“  Annales,”  does  not  form  an  entire 
volume,  but  is  contained  in  a  variety 
of  little  books  folded  and  stitched 
together  by  himself,  and  which  were 
found  mixed  with  his  papers.  Some 
specimens  of  these  notanda  have 
been  lately  printed  with  his  prayers.’ 

‘  It  was  my  business  (writes  Miss 
Hawkins,  Memoirs ,  i.  188)  to  select 
from  his  little  books  of  self-examina¬ 
tion,  which  came  into  my  father’s 
hands,  the  passages  that  should  be 
printed  as  specimens  ;  and  I  rejected, 
as  subject  to  wild  surmises,  those 
which  contained  marks  known  only 
in  their  significations  by  himself.’ 
See  also  Life ,  iv.  406,  n.  1. 


plan 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


87 


plan  for  study  was  a  very  extensive  one.  The  heads  of  science, 
to  the  extent  of  six  folio  volumes,  are  copiously  branched 
throughout  it ;  but,  as  is  generally  the  case  with  young  students, 
the  blank  far  exceed  in  number  the  written  leaves. 

To  say  the  truth,  the  course  of  his  studies  was  far  from 
regular :  he  read  by  fits  and  starts,  and,  in  the  intervals,  digested 
his  reading  by  meditation,  to  which  he  was  ever  prone.  Neither 
did  he  regard  the  hours  of  study,  farther  than  the  discipline  of 
the  college  compelled  him.  It  was  the  practice  in  his  time,  for 
a  servitor,  by  order  of  the  Master,  to  go  round  to  the  rooms  of 
the  young  men,  and  knocking  at  the  door,  to  enquire  if  they 
were  within,  and,  if  no  answer  was  returned,  to  report  them 
absent1.  Johnson  could  not  endure  this  intrusion,  and  would 
frequently  be  silent,  when  the  utterance  of  a  word  would  have 
insured  him  from  censure ;  and,  farther  to  be  revenged  for  being 
disturbed  when  he  was  profitably  employed  as  perhaps  he  could 
be,  would  join  with  others  of  the  young  men  in  the  college  in 
hunting,  as  they  called  it,  the  servitor,  who  was  thus  diligent  in 
his  duty ;  and  this  they  did  with  the  noise  of  pots  and  candle¬ 
sticks,  singing  to  the  tune  of  Chevy-chace,  the  words  in  that 
old  ballad, 

‘  To  drive  the  deer  with  hound  and  horn,’  &c., 

not  seldom  to  the  endangering  the  life  and  limbs  of  the  unfor¬ 
tunate  victim.  (Page  1 2.) 

It  was  wonderful  to  see,  when  he  took  up  a  book,  with  what 
eagerness  he  perused,  and  with  what  haste  his  eye  travelled 
over  it :  he  has  been  known  to  read  a  volume,  and  that  not 
a  small  one,  at  a  sitting ;  nor  was  he  inferior  in  the  power  of 
memory  to  him  with  whom  he  is  compared  [Magliabechi] ; 
whatever  he  read,  became  his  own  for  ever,  with  all  the  ad¬ 
vantages  that  a  penetrating  judgment  and  deep  reflection  could 
add  to  it.  I  have  heard  him  repeat,  with  scarce  a  mistake  of 


1  Whitefield,  who  entered  the 
College  soon  after  Johnson  left,  re¬ 
cords  : — ‘  It  being  my  duty,  as  ser¬ 
vitor,  in  my  turn  to  knock  at  the 
gentlemen’s  rooms  by  ten  at  night,  to 


see  who  were  in  their  rooms,  I 
thought  the  devil  would  appear  to 
me  every  stair  I  went  up.’  Tyerman’s 
Whitefield ,  i.  20. 


a  word 


88 


Extracts  from 


a  word,  passages  from  favourite  authors,  of  three  or  four  octavo 
pages  in  length1.  (Page  16.) 

He  could  not,  at  this  early  period  of  his  life,  divest  himself  of 
an  opinion,  that  poverty  was  disgraceful ;  and  was  very  severe  in 
his  censures  of  oeconomy  in  both  our  universities,  which  exacted 
at  meals  the  attendance  of  poor  scholars,  under  the  several  de¬ 
nominations  of  servitors  in  the  one,  and  sizers  in  the  other2: 
he  thought  that  the  scholar’s,  like  the  Christian  life,  levelled  all 
distinctions  of  rank  and  worldly  pre-eminence.  (Page  18.) 

Upon  his  leaving  the  university,  he  went  home  to  the  house  of 
his  father,  which  he  found  so  nearly  filled  with  his  relations,  that 
is  to  say,  the  maiden  sisters  of  his  mother  and  cousin  Cornelius 
Ford,  whom  his  father,  on  the  decease  of  their  brother  in  the 
summer  of  1731 3,  had  taken  in  to  board,  that  it  would  scarce 
receive  him.  (Page  19.) 

Cave  was  so  incompetent  a  judge  of  Johnson’s  abilities,  that, 
meaning  at  one  time  to  dazzle  him  with  the  splendour  of  some 
of  those  luminaries  in  literature  who  favoured  him  with  their 
correspondence,  he  told  him  that,  if  he  would,  in  the  evening,  be 
at  a  certain  alehouse  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Clerkenwell,  he 
might  have  a  chance  of  seeing  Mr.  Browne  4  and  another  or  two 
of  the  persons  mentioned  in  the  preceding  note:  Johnson 

1  Life ,  i.  39,  48. 

Lockhart  gives  the  following  in¬ 
stance  of  Scott’s  memory.  ‘  Lord 
Corehouse  repeating  a  phrase,  re¬ 
markable  only  for  its  absurdity,  from 
a  Magazine  poem  of  the  very  silliest 
feebleness,  which  they  had  laughed 
at  when  at  College  together  [nearly 
forty  years  earlier,]  Scott  began  at 
the  beginning,  and  gave  it  us  to  the 
end,  with  apparently  no  more  effort 
than  if  he  himself  had  composed  it 
the  day  before.’  Lockhart’s  Scott , 
ed.  1839,  vii.  194. 

2  Servitors  in  Oxford,  sizars  in 

Cambridge.  In  the  manse  at  Calder, 
where  Johnson  visited  Lord  Mac- 

accepted 


aulay’s  great  uncle,  ‘  he  gave  an  ac¬ 
count  of  the  education  at  Oxford  in 
all  its  gradations.  The  advantage  of 
being  a  servitor  to  a  youth  of  little 
fortune  struck  Mrs.  Macaulay  much.’ 
Life ,  v.  122. 

3  Nathaniel  Ford  died  in  1731  ; 
Cornelius  Ford  in  1734.  Notes  and 
Queries ,  5th  S.  xiii.  250.  Johnson 
left  Oxford  in  1729. 

4  Moses  Browne,  ‘  originally  a  pen- 
cutter,  was,  so  far  as  concerned  the 
poetical  part  of  it,  the  chief  support 
of  the  Gentleman’s  Magazine,  which 
he  fed  with  many  a  nourishing 
morsel.’  Hawkins ,  p.  46  n. 

He  became  a  clergyman  and  was 


89 


Hawkins’s  Life  of  fohnson. 

accepted  the  invitation ;  and  being  introduced  by  Cave,  dressed 
in  a  loose  horseman’s  coat,  and  such  a  great  bushy  uncombed 
wig  as  he  constantly  wore  *,  to  the  sight  of  Mr.  Browne,  whom  he 
found  sitting  at  the  upper  end  of  a  long  table,  in  a  cloud  of 
tobacco-smoke,  had  his  curiosity  gratified. 

Johnson  saw  very  clearly  those  offensive  particulars  that  made 
a  part  of  Cave’s  character ;  but,  as  he  was  one  of  the  most 
quick-sighted  men  I  ever  knew  in  discovering  the  good  and 
amiable  qualities  of  others,  a  faculty  which  he  has  displayed,  as 
well  in  the  life  of  Cave,  as  in  that  of  Savage,  printed  among 
his  works,  so  was  he  ever  inclined  to  palliate  their  defects ;  and, 
though  he  was  above  courting  the  patronage  of  a  man,  whom,  in 
respect  of  his  mental  endowments  he  considered  as  his  inferior, 
he  disdained  not  to  accept  it,  when  tendered  with  any  degree  of 
complacency. 

And  this  was  the  general  tenor  of  Johnson’s  behaviour;  for, 
though  his  character  through  life  was  marked  with  a  rough¬ 
ness  that  approached  to  ferocity,  it  was  in  the  power  of  almost 
every  one  to  charm  him  into  mildness,  and  to>  render  him  gentle 
and  placid,  and  even  courteous,  by  such  a  patient  and  respectful 
attention  as  is  due  to  every  one,,  who,,  in  his  discourse,,  signifies 
a  desire  either  to  instruct  or  delight.  Bred  to  no  profession, 
without  relations,  friends,  or  interest,  Johnson  was  an  adventurer 
in  the  wide  world,,  and  had  his  fortunes  to  make :  the  arts  of 
insinuation  and  address  were,  in  his  opinion,  too  slow  in  their 
operation  to  answer  his  purpose ;  and,  he  rather  chose  to  display 
his  parts  to  all  the  world,  at  the  risque  of  being  thought  arro¬ 
gant,  than  to  wait  for  the  assistance  of  such  friends  as  he  could 
make,  or  the  patronage  of  some  individual  that  had  power  or 
influence,  and  who  might  have  the  kindness  to  take  him  by  the 
hand,  and  lift  him  into  notice.  With  all  that  asperity  of  manners 


Vicar  of  Olney  twenty-four  years. 
He  was  born  in  1704  and  died  in 
1787.  Gentleman' s  Magazine ,  1787, 
P-  932. 

‘ I  remember/  writes  Cowper,  ‘hear¬ 
ing  Moses  Browne  say,  that  when 
he  had  only  two  or  three  children,  he 


thought  he  should  have  been  dis¬ 
tracted  ;  but  when  he  had  ten  or  a 
dozen  he  was  perfectly  -  easy,  and 
thought  no  more  about  the  matter.’ 
Cowper’s  Works ,  ed.  1836,  iv.  154. 

1  Hawkins,  post ,  p.  103,  describes 
this  wig. 


with 


9° 


Extracts  from 


with  which  he  has  been  charged,  and  which  kept  at  a  distance 
many,  who,  to  my  knowledge,  would  have  been  glad  of  an 
intimacy  with  him,  he  possessed  the  affections  of  pity  and  com¬ 
passion  in  a  most  eminent  degree.  In  a  mixed  company,  of 
which  I  was  one,  the  conversation  turned  on  the  pestilence 
which  raged  in  London,  in  the  year  1665,  and  gave  occasion  to 
Johnson  to  speak  of  Dr.  Nathanael  Hodges,  who,  in  the  height 
of  that  calamity,  continued  in  the  city,  and  was  almost  the 
only  one  of  his  profession  that  had  the  courage  to  oppose  the 
endeavours  of  his  art  to  the  spreading  of  the  contagion.  It  was 
the  hard  fate  of  this  person,  a  short  time  after,  to  die  a  prisoner 
for  debt,  in  Ludgate  :  Johnson  related  this  circumstance  to  us, 
with  the  tears  ready  to  start  from  his  eyes ;  and,  with  great 
energy  said, £  Such  a  man  would  not  have  been  suffered  to  perish 
in  these  times1.’  (Page  49.) 

Johnson  was  never  greedy  of  money,  but  without  money  could 
not  be  stimulated  to  write.  I  have  been  told  by  a  clergyman 
of  some  eminence  with  whom  he  had  been  long  acquainted, 
that,  being  to  preach  on  a  particular  occasion,  he  applied,  as 
others  under  a  like  necessity  had  frequently  done,  to  Johnson 
for  help.  ‘  I  will  write  a  sermon  for  thee,’  said  Johnson,  ‘  but 
thou  must  pay  me  for  it 2.’  (Page  84.) 


1  De  Foe  mentions  him  in  a  pas¬ 
sage,  where,  speaking  of  the  quacks, 
he  says  : — ‘their  doors  were  more 
thronged  than  those  of  .  .  .  Dr. 
Hodges,  or  any,  though  the  most 
famous  men  of  the  time.’  De  Foe’s 
Works ,  v.  25.  On  p.  192  he  says  : — 
‘  Great  was  the  reproach  thrown 
upon  those  physicians  who  left  their 
patients  during  the  sickness;  and 
now  they  came  to  town  again,  nobody 
cared  to  employ  them  ;  they  were 
called  deserters,  and  frequently  bills 
were  set  up  on  their  doors, and  written, 
Here  is  a  doctor  to  be  let !  ’ 

‘In  recognition  of  Dr.  Hodges’s 
services  to  the  citizens  during  the 
plague,  the  authorities  of  the  City 
granted  him  a  stipend  as  their  au¬ 


thorised  physician.  .  .  .  He  became 
pqor,  was  imprisoned  in  Ludgate  for 
debt,  and  there  died  June  10,  1688/ 
His  book  on  the  plague,  which  Dr. 
Quincy  translated  in  1720,  ‘  shows 
him  to  have  been  an  excellent  ob¬ 
server  both  as  to  symptoms  and  the 
results  of  treatment.’  Dr.  Norman 
Moore  in  the  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.  xxvii. 
60. 

2  ‘  No  man  but  a  blockhead  ever 
wrote  except  for  money.’  Life ,  iii.  19. 

Strahan  wrote  to  Hume  on  April  9, 
1774: — ‘If  your  commendations  of 
Henry’s  History  are  well  founded,  is 
not  his  work  an  exception  to  your 
own  general  rule,  that  no  good  book 
was  ever  wrote  for  money  ?  ’  Letters 
of  Hume  to  Strahan ,  p.  285. 


In 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson . 


9r 


In  contradiction  to  those,  who,  having  a  wife  and  children, 
prefer  domestic  enjoyments  to  those  which  a  tavern  affords, 
I  have  heard  him  assert,  that  a  tavern-chair  was  the  throne  of 
human  felicity  *. — *  As  soon,’  said  he,  *  as  I  enter  the  door  of 
a  tavern,  I  experience  an  oblivion  of  care,  and  a  freedom  from 
solicitude2 :  when  I  am  seated,  I  find  the  master  courteous,  and 


‘  We  who  write,  if  we  want  the  talent, 
yet  have  the  excuse  that  we  do  it  for 
a  poor  subsistence  ;  but  what  can  be 
urged  in  their  defence,  who  not  having 
the  vocation  of  poverty  to  scribble, 
out  of  meer  wantonness  take  pains 
to  make  themselves  ridiculous.’ 
Dryden’s  Preface  to  All for  Love. 

Johnson  says  of  Addison: — ‘I  have 
heard  that  his  avidity  did  not  satisfy 
itself  with  the  air  of  renown,  but  that 
with  great  eagerness  he  laid  hold  on 
his  proportion  of  the  profits.’  Works, 
vii.  437.  See  also  ante ,  ii.  14,  and 
post,  p.  107. 

1  Ante,  ii.  70. 

2  ‘  It  is  worthy  of  repiark  by  those 
who  are  curious  in  observing  customs 
and  modes  of  living,  how  little  these 
houses  of  entertainment  are  now 
frequented,  and  what  a  diminution  in 
their  number  has  been  experienced 
in  London  and  Westminster  in  a 
period  of  about  forty  years  backward. 
.  .  .  When  the  frenzy  of  the  times  was 
abated  [after  the  Restoration],  taverns, 
especially  those  about  the  Exchange, 
became  places  for  the  transaction  of 
almost  all  manner  of  business  :  there 
accounts  were  settled,  conveyances 
executed,  and  there  attomies  sat,  as 
at  inns  in  the  country  on  market 
days,  to  receive  their  clients.  In  that 
space  near  the  Royal  Exchange  which 
is  encompassed  by  Lombard,  Grace- 
church,  part  of  Bishop’s-gate  and 
Threadneedle  streets,  the  number  of 
taverns  was  not  so  few  as  twenty, 
and  on  the  site  of  the  Bank  there 
stood  four.  At  the  Crown,  which 


was  one  of  them,  it  was  not  unusual 
in  a  morning  to  draw  a  butt  of 
mountain,  a  hundred  and  twenty 
gallons,  in  gills.’  Note  by  Hawkins. 

In  the  Old  Cheshire  Cheese,  that 
ancient  Fleet  Street  tavern  which 
looks  now  as  it  may  have  looked  in 
Johnson’s  day,  his  seat  is  marked  by 
an  inscription.  In  no  contemporary 
writer  is  mention  made  of  his  fre¬ 
quenting  the  tavern.  Cyrus  Jay,  in 
1868,  dedicated  his  book  The  Law  : 
‘  To  the  Lawyers  and  Gentlemen  with 
whom  I  have  dined  for  more  than 
half  a  century  at  the  Old  Cheshire 
Cheese,  Wine  Office  Court,  Fleet 
Street.’  In  the  Preface  he  says  : — 
‘  During  the  fifty-three  years  I  have 
frequented  the  Cheshire  Cheese  there 
have  been  only  three  landlords. 
When  I  first  visited  it  I  used  to  meet 
several  old  gentlemen  who  remem¬ 
bered  Dr.  Johnson  nightly  at  the 
Cheshire  Cheese ;  and  they  have 
told  me,  what  is  not  generally  known, 
that  the  Doctor,  whilst  living  in  the 
Temple,  always  went  to  the  Mitre  or 
the  Essex  Head  ;  but  when  he  re¬ 
moved  to  Gough  Square  or  Bolt 
Court  he  was  a  constant  visitor  at 
the  Cheshire  Cheese,  because  nothing 
but  a  hurricane  would  have  induced 
him  to  cross  Fleet  Street.’ 

There  is  much  loose  talk  in  this. 
It  is  not  likely  that  many,  if  indeed 
any,  of  the  old  gentlemen  remembered 
Johnson  in  Gough  Square,  for  he 
left  it  in  1759.  It  was  moreover  a 
year  later  that  he  removed  to  the 
Temple.  Boswell  too  records  many 

the 


92 


Extracts  from 


the  servants  obsequious  to  my  call ;  anxious  to  know  and  ready 
to  supply  my  wants :  wine  there  exhilarates  my  spirits,  and 
prompts  me  to  free  conversation  and  an  interchange  of  dis¬ 
course  with  those  whom  I  most  love :  I  dogmatise  and  am  con¬ 
tradicted,  and  in  this  conflict  of  opinions  and  sentiments  I  find 
delight  V  (Page  87.) 

The  debates  penned  by  Johnson  were  not  only  more  methodical 
and  better  connected  than  those  of  Guthrie2,  but  in  all  the 
ornaments  of  stile  superior :  they  were  written  at  those  seasons 
when  he  was  able  to  raise  his  imagination  to  such  a  pitch  of 
fervour  as  bordered  upon  enthusiasm,  which,  that  he  might  the 
better  do,  his  practice  was  to  shut  himself  up  in  a  room 
assigned  him  at  St.  John;s  gate,  to  which  he  would  not  suffer 
any  one  to*  approach,  except  the  compositor  or  Cave’s  boy  for 
matter,  which,  as  fast  as  he  composed  it,  he  tumbled  out  at  the 
door3.  (Page  99.) 


His  discourse,  which  through  life  was  of  the  didactic  kind,  was 
replete  with  original  sentiments  expressed  in  the  strongest  and 
most  correct  terms,  and  in  such  language,  that  whoever  could 
have  heard  and  not  seen  him  would  have  thought  him  reading  4. 
For  the  pleasure  he  communicated  to  His  hearers  he  expected 
not  the  tribute  of  silence :  on  the  contrary  he  encouraged  others, 
particularly  young  men,  to  speak,  and  paid  a  due  attention  to 
what  they  said  5 ;  but  his  prejudices  were  so  strong  and  deeply 
rooted,  more  especially  against  Scotchmen 6  and  Whigs,  that 
whoever  thwarted  him  ran  the  risque  of  a  severe  rebuke,  or  at 


dinners  at  the  Mitre  after  he  had  re¬ 
moved  to  the  other  side  of  Fleet 
Street.  Nevertheless  we  may  take 
the  account  as  direct  evidence  of 
what  could  scarcely  be  doubtful  that 
Johnson  often  dined  in  the  tavern. 

1  Quoted  by  Boswell.  Life ,  ii.  452. 

When  I  had  the  honour  of  meeting 
Mr.  Gladstone  at  Oxford  on  Feb.  6, 
1890,  he  quoted  this  passage  in  his 
strong,  deep  voice,  with  deliberate 
utterance,  and  praised  it  highly. 


2  Life ,  i.  1 16. 

3  lb.  iv.  408. 

4  lb.  i.  204 ;  iv.  183  ;  post  in 
Reynolds’s  Anecdotes. 

s  Johnson,  speaking  of  himself, 
said: — ‘No  man  is  so  cautious  not 
to  interrupt  another ;  no  man  thinks 
it  so  necessary  to  appear  attentive 
when  others  are  speaking.’  Ante , 
i.  169. 

6  Ante,  i.  429;  Life ,  ii.  77,  121, 
306  ;  iv.  169. 


best 


Hawkins’s  Life  of  Johnson. 


93 


best  became  entangled  in  an  unpleasant  altercation1.  He  was 
scarce  settled  in  town  before  this  dogmatical  behaviour,  and  his 
impatience  of  contradiction,  became  a  part  of  his  character,  and 
deterred  many  persons  of  learning,  who  wished  to  enjoy  the 
delight  of  his  conversation,  from  seeking  his  acquaintance. 
There  were  not  wanting  those  among  his  friends  who  would 
sometimes  hint  to  him,  that  the  conditions  of  free  conversation 
imply  an  equality  among  those  engaged  in  it,  which  are  violated 
whenever  superiority  is  assumed2:  their  reproofs  he  took  kindly, 
and  would  in  excuse  for  what  they  called  the  pride  of  learning, 
say,  that  it  was  of  the  defensive  kind 3.  The  repetition  of  these 
had,  however,  a  great  effect  on  him  ;  they  abated  his  prejudices, 
and  produced  a  change  in  his  temper  and  manners  that  rendered 
him  at  length  a  desirable  companion  in  the  most  polite  circles. 

In  the  lesser  duties  of  morality  he  was  remiss  :  he  slept  when 
he  should  have  studied,  and  watched  when  he  should  have  been 
at  rest :  his  habits  were  slovenly,  and  the  neglect  of  his  person 
and  garb  so  great  as  to  render  his  appearance  disgusting4. 
He  was  an  ill  husband  of  his  time,  and  so  regardless  of  the 
hours  of  refection,  that  at  two  he  might  be  found  at  breakfast, 
and  at  dinner  at  eight 5.  In  his  studies,  and  I  may  add,  in  his 


1  ‘  Sir,  I  perceive  you  are  a  vile 
Whig.’  Life ,  ii.  170.  See  also  ib. 
v.  255. 

2  ‘  Sir,  (said  Goldsmith,)  you  are 
for  making  a  monarchy  of  what 
should  be  a  republick.’  Ib.  ii.  257. 

3  They  borrowed  this  from  John¬ 
son.  ‘  “  Sir,  (said  Johnson)  that  is 
not  Lord  Chesterfield ;  he  is  the 
proudest  man  this  day  existing.” — 
“  No,  (said  Dr.  Adams)  there  is  one 
person,  at  least,  as  proud ;  I  think, 
by  your  own  account,  you  are  the 
prouder  man  of  the  two.” — “  But 
mine  (replied  Johnson  instantly)  was 
defensive  pride.’”  Ib.  i.  265. 

4  Life,  1.396.  For  the  improvement 
which  took  place,  see  ib.  iii.  325  ; 
ante ,  i.  241,  and  Letters ,  i.  322  ; 
ii.  39. 

5  In  1760  the  dinner-hour  in  most 


Oxford  Colleges  was  12.30;  in  some 
as  early  as  11.  Bentham’s  Works , 
x.  61.  At  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s 
1  dinner  was  served  precisely  at  five, 
whether  all  the  company  had  arrived 
or  not.’  Leslie  and  Taylor’s  Reynolds , 
i.  384. 

Horace  Walpole  wrote  on  Feb.  6, 
1777  {Letters,  vi.  410)  :  ‘  Everything 
is  changed ;  as  always  must  happen 
when  one  grows  old,  and  is  prejudiced 
to  one’s  old  ways.  I  do  not  like 
dining  at  nearly  six,  nor  beginning 
the  evening  at  ten  at  night.’ 

When  a  few  years  ago  the  Prince 
of  Wales  asked  General  Gordon, 
soon  after  his  return  from  the  Soudan, 
to  dine  with  him,  the  general  replied, 
that  he  was  sorry  he  could  not  accept 
the  invitation,  as  at  the  hour  named 
he  was  always  in  bed. 


devotional 


94 


Extracts  from 


devotional  exercises,  he  was  both  intense  and  remiss x,  and  in  the 
prosecution  of  his  literary  employments,  dilatory  and  hasty, 
unwilling,  as  himself  confessed,  to  work,  and  working  with  vigour 
and  haste1 2. 

His  indolence,  or  rather  the  delight  he  took  in  reading  and 
reflection,  rendered  him  averse  to  bodily  exertions.  He  was  ill 
made  for  riding,  and  took  so  little  pleasure  in  it,  that,  as  he  once 
told  me,  he  has  fallen  asleep  on  his  horse  3.  Walking  he  seldom 
practised,  perhaps  for  no  better  reason,  than  that  it  required  the 
previous  labour  of  dressing.  In  a  word,  mental  occupation  was 
his  sole  pleasure,  and  the  knowledge  he  acquired  in  the  pursuit 
of  it  he  was  ever  ready  to  communicate :  in  which  faculty  he 
was  not  only  excellent  but  expert  ;  for,  as  it  is  related  of 
lord  Bacon  by  one  who  knew  him 4,  that  ‘  in  all  companies  he 
appeared  a  good  proficient,  if  not  a  master,  in  those  arts  enter¬ 
tained  for  the  subject  of  every  one’s  discourse,5  and  that  chis 
most  casual  talk  deserved  to  be  written,5  so  it  may  be  said 
of  Johnson,  that  his  conversation  was  ever  suited  to  the 
profession,  condition,  and  capacity  of  those  with  whom  he 
talked5.  (Page  164.) 

Johnson,  who  before  this  time  [1748  or  1749],  together  with 
his  wife,  had  lived  in  obscurity,  lodging  at  different  houses  in 
the  courts  and  alleys  in  and  about  the  Strand  and  Fleet  street 6, 
had,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on  this  arduous  work  [the 
Dictionary ],  and  being  near  the  printers  employed  in  it,  taken 
a  handsome  house  in  Gough  square 7,  and  fitted  up  a  room  in  it 
with  desks  and  other  accommodations  for  amanuenses,  who,  to 
the  number  of  five  or  six,  he  kept  constantly  under  his  eye. 


1  F or  his  attendance  at  church,  see 
ante ,  i.  63,  81  ;  Life ,  i.  67  ;  iii.  401. 

2  Ajite ,  i.  96. 

3  For  his  fox-hunting,  see  ante ,  i. 
288. 

4  Works  of  Francis  Osborn,  Esq. ; 
8vo,  1673,  p.  1 5 1.  Note  by  Hawkins. 

5  Life ,  iii.  337. 

6  Also  in  Holbom.  For  the  list  of 

his  habitations,  see  ib.  iii.  405. 


7  Lb.  i.  188  ;  Letters ,  i.  18.  It  was 
in  No.  17  that  he  lived. 

‘  There  is  no  city  in  Europe,  I  be¬ 
lieve,  in  which  house-rent  is  dearer 
than  in  London,  and  yet  I  know  no 
capital  in  which  a  furnished  apart¬ 
ment  can  be  hired  so  cheap.’  Wealth 
of  Nations,  Bk.  I.  ch.  10,  ed.  1811, 
i.  161. 


An 


Hawkins’s  Life  of  Johnson . 


95 


An  interleaved  copy  of  Bailey’s  dictionary 1  in  folio  he  made  the 
repository  of  the  several  articles,  and  these  he  collected  by 
incessant  reading  the  best  authors  in  our  language,  in  the 
practice  whereof,  his  method  was  to  score  with  a  black-lead  pencil 
the  words  by  him  selected,  and  give  them  over  to  his  assistants 
to  insert  in  their  places 2.  The  books  he  used  for  this  purpose 
were  what  he  had  in  his  own  collection,  a  copious  but  a  miserably 
ragged  one,  and  all  such  as  he  could  borrow  ;  which  latter, 
if  ever  they  came  back  to  those  that  lent  them,  were  so  defaced 
as  to  be  scarce  worth  owning,  and  yet,  some  of  his  friends  were 
glad  to  receive  and  entertain  them  as  curiosities3.  (Page  175.) 

Further  to  appease  Johnson  Lord  Chesterfield  sent  two  persons, 
the  one  a  specious  but  empty  man,  Sir  Thomas  Robinson,  more 
distinguished  by  the  tallness  of  his  person  than  for  any  estimable 
qualities 4 ;  the  other  an  eminent  painter  now  living.  These 


1  Nathaniel  Bailey  published  his 
English  Dictionary  in  1721. 

‘  “  What  objection  can  you  have  to 
the  young  gentleman  ?  ”  says  Mrs. 
Western. 

‘  “  A  very  solid  objection,  in  my 
opinion/  says  Sophia — “  I  hate  him.” 

‘“Will  you  never  learn  a  proper 
use  of  words  ?  ”  answered  the  aunt. 
“  Indeed,  child,  you  should  consult 
Bailey’s  Dictionary.”  ’  Tom  Jones , 
Bk.  vii.  ch.  3. 

Dr.  Murray,  in  the  New  Eng.  Diet. 
under  Belace  says  that  this  word  ‘  is 
found  only  in  Dictionaries.  It  ap¬ 
peared  first  in  Bailey’s  folio,  1730, 
was  retained  by  Dr.  Johnson  (who 
used  a  copy  of  that  as  the  basis  of 
his  work),  and  from  him  it  has  been 
perpetuated  by  later  dictionaries.’ 
Johnson  omitted  the  word  in  his 
Abridgment. 

2  Post  in  Percy’s  Anecdotes. 

3  Life ,  i.  188. 

Mr.  Talbot  Baines  Reid  showed 
me  a  small  sheet  of  paper  in  Johnson’s 
hand  in  which  quotations  had  been 
written  such  as  the  following : — 


‘  But  some  untaught  o’erhear  the 
whisp’ring  rill, 

In  spite  of  sacred  leisure  block - 
heads  still.’ 

Young  \Saiire  i.,  Works ,  ed.  1813, 
ii.  87]. 

‘  His  well-breath’d  beagles  sweep 
along  the  plain.’ 

Young  [. Ib .  p.  88]. 

‘A  gipsy  you  commit 
‘  And  shake  the  clumsy  bench  with 
country  wit.’ 

Young  [. Ib.\ . 

‘  Beauty  is  no  bar  to  sense.’ 

Young  [Satire  v.,  ii.  126]. 

These  passages  are  not  quoted  in 
the  Dictionary  under  the  words 
underlined  by  Johnson. 

4  ‘  This  person,  who  is  now  at  rest 
in  Westmirister-abbey,  was,  when 
living,  distinguished  by  the  name  of 
long  Sir  Thomas  Robinson.  He  was 
a  man  of  the  world  or  rather  of  the 
town,  and  a  great  pest  to  persons  of 
high  rank  or  in  office.  He  was  very 
troublesome  to  the  earl  of  Burlington, 
and  when  in  his  visits  to  him  he  was 
told  that  his  lordship  was  gone  out, 

were 


96 


Extracts  from 


were  instructed  to  apologize  for  his  lordship’s  treatment  of 
him,  and  to  make  him  tenders  of  his  future  friendship  and 
patronage.  Sir  Thomas,  whose  talent  was  flattery,  was  profuse 
in  his  commendations  of  Johnson  and  his  writings,  and  declared 
that  were  his  circumstances  other  than  they  were,  himself  would 
settle  five  hundred  pounds  a  year  on  him.  ‘  And  who  are  you/ 
asked  Johnson,  ‘that  talk  thus  liberally?’  ‘I  am/  said  the 
other,  ‘ Sir  Thomas  Robinson,  a  Yorkshire  baronet.’  ‘  Sir/ 
replied  Johnson,  ‘  if  the  first  peer  of  the  realm  were  to  make 
me  such  an  offer,  I  would  shew  him  the  way  down  stairs  V 
(Page  191.) 

In  these  disputations  [at  the  Ivy  Lane  Club2]  I  had  oppor- 
tunities  of  observing  what  others  have  taken  occasion  to  remark, 
viz.  not  only  that  in  conversation  Johnson  made  it  a  rule  to  talk 
his  best 3,  but  that  on  many  subjects  he  was  not  uniform  in  his 
opinions,  contending  as  often  for  victory  as  for  truth 4 :  at  one 
time  good ,  at  another  evil  was  predominant  in  the  moral  constitu¬ 
tion  of  the  world.  Upon  one  occasion,  he  would  deplore  the 
non-observance  of  Good-Friday,  and  on  another  deny,  that 
among  us  of  the  present  age  there  is  any  decline  of  public 
worship 5.  He  would  sometimes  contradict  self-evident  pro- 


would  desire  to  be  admitted  to  look 
at  the  clock,  or  to  play  with  a  monkey 
that  was  kept  in  the  hall,  in  hopes 
of  being  sent  for  in  to  the  earl.  This 
he  had  so  frequently  done,  that  all 
in  the  house  were  tired  of  him.  At 
length  it  was  concerted  among  the 
servants  that  he  should  receive  a 
summary  answer  to  his  usual  ques¬ 
tions,  and  accordingly  at  his  next 
coming,  the  porter  as  soon  as  he  had 
opened  the  gate  and  without  waiting 
for  what  he  had  to  say,  dismissed 
him  with  these  words,  “  Sir,  his  lord- 
ship  is  gone  out,  the  clock  stands, 
and  the  monkey  is  dead.”  ’  Note  by 
Hawkins. 

For  the  Earl  of  Burlington,  see 
Life ,  iii.  347  ;  iv.  50,  n.  4. 

1  He  visited  Johnson  after  this,  for 
in  1763  Boswell  found  him  sitting 


with  him.  Life ,  i.  434.  Dr.  Maxwell 
recorded  how  Johnson  once  told  the 
Baronet  that  ‘  he  talked  the  language 
of  a  savage.’  Ib.  ii.  130. 

Horace  Walpole  describes  Robin¬ 
son  as  ‘  one  of  those  men  of  temporary 
fame  who  are  universally  known  in 
their  own  age,  and  rarely  by  any 
other  age.  He  was  an  indiscriminate 
flatterer.’  Philobiblon ,  x.  iv.  57. 

2  Ante ,  i.  388.  3  Life ,  iv.  183. 

4  Ib.  ii.  238  ;  iv.  hi  ;  ante ,  i.  452. 

5  ‘Boswell.  “Is  there  not  less 
religion  in  the  nation  now,  Sir,  than 
there  was  formerly?’’  Johnson. 
“  I  don’t  know,  Sir,  that  there  is.”  ’ 
Life ,  ii.  96.  ‘He  lamented  that  all 
serious  and  religious  conversation 
was  banished  from  the  society  of 
men.’  Ib.  ii.  124. 

‘  I  remarked,  that  one  disadvantage 

positions 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson . 


97 


positions,  such  as,  that  the  luxury  of  this  country  has  increased 
with  its  riches1  and  that  the  practice  of  card-playing  is  more 
general  than  heretofore2.  At  this  versatility  of  temper,  none, 
however,  took  offence ;  as  Alexander  and  Cassar  were  born  for 
conquest,  so  was  Johnson  for  the  office  of  a  symposiarch 3,  to 
preside  in  all  conversations  ;  and  I  never  yet  saw  the  man  who 
would  venture  to  contest  his  right 4. 

Let  it  not,  however,  be  imagined,  that  the  members  of  this 
our  club  met  together,  with  the  temper  of  gladiators,  or  that 
there  was  wanting  among  us  a  disposition  to  yield  to  each  other 
in  all  diversities  of  opinion :  and  indeed,  disputation  was  not, 
as  in  many  associations  of  this  kind,  the  purpose  of  our  meeting  : 
nor  were  our  conversations,  like  those  of  the  Rota  club 5,  re¬ 
strained  to  particular  topics.  On  the  contrary,  it  may  be  said, 
that  with  our  gravest  discourses  was  intermingled 

‘  Mirth,  that  after  no  repenting  draws,’ 

Milton  (Sonnet  to  Cyriac  Skinner), 

for  not  only  in  Johnsons  melancholy  there  were  lucid  intervals6, 


arising  from  the  immensity  of  London, 
was,  that  nobody  was  heeded  by  his 
neighbour ;  there  was  no  fear  of  cen¬ 
sure  for  not  observing  Good  Friday, 
as  it  ought  to  be  kept,  and  as  it  is  kept 
in  country-towns.  He  said,  it  was, 
upon  the  whole,  very  well  observed 
even  in  London.’  Life ,  ii.  356. 

1  Johnson  always  opposed  attacks 
on  luxury.  To  suppose  that  it  cor¬ 
rupts  a  people  and  destroys  the  spirit 
of  liberty  was  ‘  all  visionary.’  Ib.  ii. 
170.  ‘No  nation  was  ever  hurt  by 
it,  for  it  can  reach  but  to  a  very  few.’ 
Ib.  ii.  218.  ‘It  produces  much  good.’ 
Ib.  iii.  56.  ‘  He  laughed  at  querulous 

declamations  against  the  age  on  ac¬ 
count  of  luxury.’  Ib.  iii.  226.  ‘  De¬ 

pend  upon  it,  Sir,  every  state  of 
society  is  as  luxurious  as  it  can  be.’ 
Ib.  iii.  282.  ‘  Man  is  not  diminished 

in  size  by  it.’  Ib.  v.  358. 

Luxury,  which  in  most  parts  of 
life  by  being  well-balanced  and  dif- 

VOL.  II. 


fused,  is  only  decency  and  conveni¬ 
ence,  has  perhaps  as  many,  or  more, 
good  than  evil  consequences  attend¬ 
ing  it.  It  certainly  excites  industry, 
nourishes  emulation,  and  inspires 
some  sense  of  personal  value  into  all 
ranks  of  people.’  Burke’s  Works ,  ed. 
1808,  ii.  203. 

2  Life ,  iii.  23. 

3  Symposiarch  is  not  in  Johnson’s 
Dictionary. 

4  Ante ,  ii.  93,  n.  2. 

5  Hawkins,  I  suppose,  refers  to  the 
Rota  Club  in  which  James  Harington, 
‘  with  a  few  associates  as  fanatical  as 
himself,  used  to  meet,  with  all  the 
gravity  of  political  importance,  to 
settle  an  equal  government  by  rota¬ 
tion.’  Johnson’s  Works,  vii.  95. 
They  met  in  New  Palace  Yard, 
Westminster.  Swift’s  Works,  ed. 
1803,  ii.  321. 

6  Letters ,  ii.  377,  n.  1. 


H 


but 


98 


Extracts  from 


but  he  was  a  great  contributor  to  the  mirth  of  conversation,  by 
the  many  witty  sayings  he  uttered,  and  the  many  excellent 
stories  which  his  memory  had  treasured  up,  and  he  would  on 
occasion  relate ;  so  that  those  are  greatly  mistaken  who  infer, 
either  from  the  general  tendency  of  his  writings,  or  that  appear¬ 
ance  of  hebetude  which  marked  his  countenance  when  living, 
and  is  discernible  in  the  pictures  and  prints  of  him,  that  he 
could  only  reason  and  discuss,  dictate  and  controul. 

In  the  talent  of  humour  there  hardly  ever  was  his  equal x, 


1  Ante,  i.452.  The  following  extract 
is  from  a  letter  which  I  received  from 
the  late  Master  of  Balliol  College, 
dated  West  Malvern,  Dec.  30, 1 883 : — • 

‘  It  is  a  curious  question  whether 
Boswell  has  unconsciously  misrepre¬ 
sented  Johnson  in  any  respect.  I 
think,  judging  from  the  materials 
which  are  supplied  chiefly  by  himself, 
that  in  one  respect  he  has  : — He  has 
represented  him  more  as  a  sage  and 
philosopher  in  his  conduct  as  well  as 
his  conversation  than  he  really  was, 
and  less  as  a  rollicking  “  King  of 
Society.”  The  gravity  of  Johnson’s 
own  writings  tends  to  confirm  this, 
as,  I  suspect,  erroneous  impression. 
His  religion  was  fitful  and  inter¬ 
mittent,  and  when  once  the  ice  was 
broken  he  enjoyed  Jack  Wilkes, 
though  he  refused  to  shake  hands 
with  Hume.  I  was  much  struck  by 
a  remark  of  Sir  John  Hawkins  (ex¬ 
cuse  me  if  I  have  mentioned  this  to 
you  before),  “  He  was  the  most 
humorous  man  I  ever  knew.”  ...  I 
shall  be  most  happy  to  talk  about  the 
subject  when  you  return  to  England  ; 
f/xoi  7T(pi  'SooKparovs  clrreiv  re  Kai  aKovaai 
ad  rjdiaTovt 

Though  Boswell  does  not  fully 
bring  out  in  his  narrative  this  hu¬ 
morous  side  of  Johnson,  yet  in  the 
character  which  he  draws  of  him  at 
the  end  of  the  Life  he  does  not  pass 
it  over.  ‘  Though  usually  grave,  and 


even  aweful  in  his  deportment,  he 
possessed  uncommon  and  peculiar 
powers  of  wit  and  humour ;  he  fre¬ 
quently  indulged  himself  in  colloquial 
pleasantry  ;  and  the  heartiest  merri¬ 
ment  was  often  enjoyed  in  his  com¬ 
pany.’  Life ,  iv.  428. 

Boswell  asked  Miss  Burney  to  give 
him  material  ‘  to  shew  Johnson  in  a 
new  light.  Grave  Sam,  and  great 
Sam,  and  solemn  Sam,  and  learned 
Sam — all  these  he  has  appeared  over 
and  over.  I  want  to  show  him  as 
gay  Sam,  agreeable  Sam,  pleasant 
Sam.’  Mme.  D’Arblay’s  Diary ,  v. 
167.  It  is  in  her  Diary  that  he  is 
thus  best  shown.  It  abounds  in  such 
passages  as  the  following  : — 

‘  At  night,  Mrs.  Thrale  asked  if  I 
would  have  anything  ?  I  answered, 
“  No; ”  but  Dr.  Johnson  said, 

‘“Yes:  she  is  used,  madam,  to 
suppers  ;  she  would  like  an  egg  or 
two,  and  a  few  slices  of  ham,  or  a 
rasher — a  rasher,  I  believe,  would 
please  her  better.” 

‘  How  ridiculous !  However,  nothing 
could  persuade  Mrs.  Thrale  not  to 
have  the  cloth  laid  :  and  Dr.  Johnson 
was  so  facetious,  that  he  challenged 
Mr.  Thrale  to  get  drunk ! 

‘  “  I  wish,”  said  he,  “  my  master 
would  say  to  me,  Johnson,  if  you  will 
oblige  me,  you  will  call  for  a  bottle 
of  Toulon,  and  then  we  will  set  to  it, 
glass  for  glass,  till  it  is  done ;  and 

except 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson . 


99 


except  perhaps  among  the  old  comedians,  such  as  Tarleton,  and 
a  few  others  mentioned  by  Cibber.  By  means  of  this  he  was 
enabled  to  give  to  any  relation  that  required  it,  the  graces  and 
aids  of  expression,  and  to  discriminate  with  the  nicest  exactness 
the  characters  of  those  whom  it  concerned.  In  aping  this  faculty 
I  have  seen  Warburton  disconcerted,  and  when  he  would  fain 
have  been  thought  a  man  of  pleasantry,  not  a  little  out  of 
countenance.  (Page  257.) 


To  return  to  Johnson,  I  have  already  said  that  he  paid  no 
regard  to  time  or  the  stated  hours  of  refection,  or  even  rest ;  and 
of  this  his  inattention  I  will  here  relate  a  notable  instance. 
Mrs.  Lenox,  a  lady  now  well  known  in  the  literary  world,  had 
written  a  novel  intitled,  ‘  The  life  of  Harriot  Stuart/  which  in 
the  spring  of  1751  was  ready  for  publication1.  One  evening  at 
the  club,  Johnson  j5lfep@$ed  to  us  the  celebrating  the  birth  of 
Mrs.  Lenox’s  first  literary  child,  as  he  called  her  book,  by 
a  whole  night  spent  in  festivity.  Upon  his  mentioning  it  to  me, 
I  told  him  I  had  never  sat  up  a  whole  night  in  my  life ;  but  he 
continuing  to  press  me,  and  saying,  that  I  should  find  great 
delight  in  it,  I,  as  did  all  the  rest  of  our  company,  consented. 
The  place  appointed  was  the  Devil  tavern2,  and  there,  about 


after  that,  I  will  say,  Thrale,  if  you 
will  oblige  me,  you  will  call  for  another 
bottle  of  Toulon,  and  then  we  will  set 
to  it,  glass  for  glass,  till  that  is  done  : 
and  by  the  time  we  should  have 
drunk  the  two  bottles,  we  should  be 
so  happy,  and  such  good  friends, 
that  we  should  fly  into  each  other’s 
arms,  and  both  together  call  for  the 
third  !  ”  ’  Vol.  i.  p.  75. 

1  ‘  These  volumes  contain  a  series 
of  love-affairs  from  1 1  years  of  age, 
attended  with  a  number  of  her  ad¬ 
ventures  and  misfortunes,  which  were 
borne  with  the  patience,  and  are 
penn’d  with  the  purity  of  a  Clarissa.’ 
Gentleman' s  Magazine ,  December, 
i75o>  p.  575* 

Horace  Walpole,  writing  two  years 
earlier,  describes  her  as  ‘  a  poetess 


and  deplorable  actress.’  Letters ,  ii. 
126.  Johnson,  in  a  letter  dated  Dec. 
10,  1751,  speaks  of  ‘our  Charlotte’s 
book.’  Letters ,  i.  26.  For  Miss 
Burney’s  criticism  of  the  extravagant 
praise  he  bestowed  on  Mrs.  Lennox, 
see  ante,  i.  102,  n.  4. 

Mrs.  Lennox  was  the  daughter  of 
Colonel  James  Ramsay,  Lieutenant- 
Governor  of  New  York.  ‘She  died 
in  distress’  in  1804,  at  the  age  of 
eighty-three,  ‘  in  Dean’s  Yard,  West¬ 
minster,  and  lies  buried  with  the 
common  soldiery  in  the  further  bury¬ 
ing  -  ground  of  Broad  Chapel.’ 
Nichols’s  Lit.  Anec.  iii.  435. 

2  Life ,  iv.  254,  n.  4. 

‘Near  Temple  Bar  is  the  Devil 
Tavern,  so  called  from  its  sign  of 
St.  Dunstan  seizing  the  evil  spirit  by 

the 


H  2 


IOO 


Extracts  from 


the  hour  of  eight,  Mrs.  Lenox  and  her  husband,  and  a  lady  of 
her  acquaintance,  now  living,  as  also  the  [Ivy  Lane]  club,  and 
friends  to  the  number  of  near  twenty,  assembled.  Our  supper 
was  elegant,  and  Johnson  had  directed  that  a  magnificent  hot 
apple-pye  should  make  a  part  of  it x,  and  this  he  would  have 
stuck  with  bay-leaves,  because,  forsooth,  Mrs.  Lenox  was  an 
authoress,  and  had  written  verses ;  and  further,  he  had  prepared 
for  her  a  crown  of  laurel,  with  which,  but  not  till  he  had 
invoked  the  muses  by  some  ceremonies  of  his  own  invention, 
he  encircled  her  brows.  The  night  passed,  as  must  be  imagined, 
in  pleasant  conversation,  and  harmless  mirth,  intermingled  at 
different  periods  with  the  refreshments  of  coffee  and  tea.  About 
five,  Johnson’s  face  shone  with  meridian  splendour,  though  his 
drink  had  been  only  lemonade 2 ;  but  the  far  greater  part  of  us 
had  deserted  the  colours  of  Bacchus,  and  were  with  difficulty 
rallied  to  partake  of  a  second  refreshment  of  coffee,  which  was 
scarcely  ended  when  the  day  began  to  dawn.  This  phenomenon 
began  to  put  us  in  mind  of  our  reckoning3 ;  but  the  waiters  were 
all  so  overcome  with  sleep,  that  it  was  two  hours  before  we  could 
get  a  bill,  and  it  was  not  till  near  eight  that  the  creaking  of  the 
street-door  gave  the  signal  for  our  departure. 

My  mirth  had  been  considerably  abated  by  a  severe  fit  of  the 
tooth-ach,  which  had  troubled  me  the  greater  part  of  the  night, 
and  which  Bathurst 4  endeavoured  to  alleviate  by  all  the  topical 
remedies  and  palliatives  he  could  think  of ;  and  I  well  remember, 
at  the  instant  of  my  going  out  of  the  tavern-door,  the  sensation  of 
shame  that  effected  me,  occasioned  not  by  reflection  on  any  thing 


the  nose  with  a  pair  of  hot  tongs. 
Opposite  to  this  noted  house  is 
Chancery  Lane.’  Pennant’s  Loiidon , 
1790,  p.  154. 

1  In  memory  of  this  festal  night  an 
apple-pie  forms  part  of  the  suppers 
of  the  Johnson  Club  at  its  meetings 
in  one  of  the  Fleet  Street  taverns. 

2  ‘  He  was  angry  with  me  (Boswell 
writes)  for  proposing  to  carry  lemons 
with  us  to  Sky,  that  he  might  be 
sure  to  have  his  lemonade.  “  Sir, 
(said  he)  I  do  not  wish  to  be  thought 


that  feeble  man  who  cannot  do  with¬ 
out  any  thing.”  ’  Life ,  v.  72. 

3  To  Hawkins  the  reckoning  must 
have  been  peculiarly  painful.  Of  him 
Dr.  Burney  records  as  regards  the 
Literary  Club  : — ‘  The  Knight  having 
refused  to  pay  his  portion  of  the 
reckoning  for  supper,  because  he 
usually  ate  no  supper  at  home,  John¬ 
son  observed.  “  Sir  John,  Sir,  is  a 
very  unclubable  man.”  ’  Life ,  i.  480, 
n.  1. 

4  Afite,  i.  390. 


evil 


Hawkins's  Life  of  fohnson. 


IOI 


evil  that  had  passed  in  the  course  of  the  night’s  entertainment, 
but  on  the  resemblance  it  bore  to  a  debauch.  However,  a  few 
turns  in  the  Temple,  and  a  breakfast  at  a  neighbouring  coffee¬ 
house  enabled  me  to  overcome  it.  (Page  285.) 


Those  who  were  best  acquainted  with  them  both  [Johnson  and 
his  wife]  wondered  that  Johnson  could  derive  no  comfort  [on  her 
death]  from  the  usual  resources,  reflections  on  the  conditions  of 
mortality,  the  instability  of  human  happiness,  resignation  to  the 
divine  will,  and  other  topics 1 ;  and  the  more,  when  they  con¬ 
sidered,  that  their  marriage  was  not  one  of  those  which  in¬ 
considerate  young  people  call  love-matches,  and  that  she  was 
more  than  old  enough  to  be  his  mother 2 ;  that,  as  their  union 
had  not  been  productive  of  children,  the  medium  of  a  new 
relation  between  them  was  wanting  ;  that  her  inattention  to  some, 
at  least,  of  the  duties  of  a  wife,  were  [sic]  evident  in  the  person 
of  her  husband,  whose  negligence  of  dress  seemed  never  to  have 
received  the  least  correction  from  her,  and  who,  in  the  sordidness 
of  his  apparel,  and  the  complexion  of  his  linen,  even  shamed 
her3.  For  these  reasons  I  have  often  been  inclined  to  think,  that 
if  this  fondness  of  Johnson  for  his  wife  was  not  dissembled, 
it  was  a  lesson  that  he  had  learned  by  rote 4,  and  that,  when 
he  practised  it,  he  knew  not  where  to  stop  till  he  became 
ridiculous.  It  is  true,  he  has  celebrated  her  person  in  the 
word  forviosce ,  which  he  caused  to  be  inscribed  on  her  grave¬ 
stone  5 ;  but  could  he,  with  that  imperfection  in  his  sight 
which  made  him  say,  in  the  words  of  Milton,  he  never  saw 


1  ‘  Those  common  -  place  topics 
which  have  never  dried  a  single 
tear.’  Gibbon’s  Misc.  Works ,  i. 
400. 

Johnson  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale  on 
the  death  of  her  husband  : — ‘  I  do 
not  exhort  you  to  reason  yourself  into 
tranquillity.  We  must  first  pray,  and 
then  labour ;  first  implore  the  bless¬ 
ing  of  God,  and  [then  employ]  those 
means  which  he  puts  into  our  hands. 
Cultivated  ground  has  few  weeds  ;  a 
mind  occupied  by  lawful  business 


has  little  room  for  useless  regret.’ 
Letters ,  ii.  210. 

2  She  was  forty-six,  he  two  months 
short  of  twenty-six.  Life ,  i.  95,  n.  2. 

3  For  her  ‘  particular  reverence  for 
cleanliness,’  see  ante ,  i.  247. 

4  Boswell  ‘  cannot  conceive  ’  why 
Hawkins  should  make  this  assertion, 
1  unless  it  proceeded  from  a  want  of 
similar  feelings  in  his  own  breast.’ 
Life ,  i.  234. 

5  ‘Formosae,  cultae,  ingeniosae, 
piae.’  Ib.  i.  241,  n.  2.  See  a?ite ,  i.  248. 

the 


102 


Extracts  from 


the  human  face  divine  \  have  been  a  witness  to  her  beauty  ? 
which  we  may  suppose  had  sustained  some  loss  before  he 
married  ;  her  daughter  by  her  former  husband  being  but  little 
younger  than  Johnson  himself.  As,  during  her  lifetime,  he 
invited  but  few  of  his  friends  to  his  house,  I  never  saw  her, 
but  I  have  been  told  by  Mr.  Garrick1 2,  Dr.  Hawkesworth,  and 
others,  that  there  was  somewhat  crazy  in  the  behaviour  of  them 
both ;  profound  respect  on  his  part,  and  the  airs  of  an  antiquated 
beauty  on  her’s.  Johnson  had  not  then  been  used  to  the  com¬ 
pany  of  women  3,  and  nothing  but  his  conversation  rendered  him 
tolerable  among  them :  it  was,  therefore,  necessary  that  he 
should  practise  his  best  manners  to  one,  whom,  as  she  was 
descended  from  an  antient  family 4,  and  had  brought  him 
a  fortune 5,  he  thought  his  superior.  This,  after  all,  must  be 
said,  that  he  laboured  to  raise  his  opinion  of  her  to  the  highest, 
by  inserting  in  many  of  her  books  of  devotion  that  I  have 
seen,  such  endearing  memorials  as  these :  ‘  This  was  dear 

Tetty’s  book.’ - ‘This  was  a  prayer  which  dear  Tetty  was 

accustomed  to  say,’  not  to  mention  his  frequent  recollection 
of  her  in  his  meditations,  and  the  singularity  of  his  prayers 
respecting  her  6. 

To  so  high  a  pitch  had  he  worked  his  remembrance  of  her, 
that  he  requested  a  divine,  of  his  acquaintance7,  to  preach 
a  sermon  at  her  interment,  written  by  himself,  but  was  dissuaded 
from  so  ostentatious  a  display  of  the  virtues  of  a  woman,  who, 
though  she  was  his  wife,  was  but  little  known.  (Page  313.) 

Of  the  beauties  of  painting,  notwithstanding  the  many  eulo- 
giums  on  that  art  which,  after  the  commencement  of  his 
friendship  with  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  Johnson  inserted  in  his 
writings,  he  had  not  the  least  conception ;  and  this  leads  me  to 
mention  a  fact  to  the  purpose,  which  I  well  remember.  One 


1  Paradise  Lost ,  iii.  44. 

2  Ante ,  i.  248. 

3  See  Life ,  i.  82,  for  his  intimacy 
with  some  of  the  first  families  in  and 
near  Lichfield. 

4  On  her  tombstone  he  describes 

her  as  ‘Antiqua  Jarvisiorum  gente, 


Peatlingae,  apud  Leicestrienses, 
ortae.’  Life ,  i.  241,  n.  2. 

5  She  is  said  to  have  brought  him 
about  seven  or  eight  hundred  pounds. 
Ib.  i.  95,  n.  3.  6  Ante ,  i.  14. 

7  Dr.  Taylor.  Ante ,  i.  476 ;  Life , 
i.  241. 


evening 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson . 


103 


evening  at  the  club,  I  came  in  with  a  small  roll  of  prints,  which, 
in  the  afternoon,  I  had  picked  up :  I  think  they  were  landscapes 
of  Perelle1,  and  laying  it  down  with  my  hat,  Johnson’s  curiosity 
prompted  him  to  take  it  up  and  unroll  it ;  he  viewed  the  prints 
severally  with  great  attention,  and  asked  me  what  sort  of  pleasure 
such  things  could  afford  me  ;  I  told  him,  that  as  representa¬ 
tions  of  nature,  containing  an  assemblage  of  such  particulars  as 
render  rural  scenes  delightful,  they  presented  to  my  mind  the 
objects  themselves,  and  that  my  imagination  realised  the  pros¬ 
pect  before  me  ;  he  said,  that  was  more  than  his  would  do,  for 
that  in  his  whole  life  he  was  never  capable  of  discerning  the 
least  resemblance  of  any  kind  between  a  picture  and  the  subject 
it  was  intended  to  represent 2 3. 

To  the  delights  of  music,  he  was  equally  insensible  :  neither 
voice  nor  instrument,  nor  the  harmony  of  concordant  sounds, 
had  power  over  his  affections,  or  even  to  engage  his  attention. 
Of  music  in  general,  he  has  been  heard  to  say,  ‘  it  excites  in  my 
mind  no  ideas,  and  hinders  me  from  contemplating  my  own  ;  ’ 
and  of  a  fine  singer,  or  instrumental  performer,  that  £  he  had  the 
merit  of  a  Canary-bird  V  (Page  31  ft.) 

The  uses  for  which  Francis  Barber  was  intended  to  serve  his 
master  were  not  very  apparent,  for  Diogenes  himself  never 
wanted  a  servant  less  than  he  seemed  to  do 4 :  the  great  bushy 
wig,  which  throughout  his  life  he  affected  to  wear,  by  that  close¬ 
ness  of  texture  which  it  had  contracted  and  been  suffered  to 
retain,  was  ever  nearly  as  impenetrable  by  a  comb  as  a  quickset 


1  There  were  in  the  seventeenth 
century  three  French  engravers  of 
the  name  of  Perelle  or  Perrelle,  a 
father  and  two  sons.  Nouv.  Blog. 
Gdn. 

2  This  was  an  exaggeration  on  the 
part  of  either  Johnson  or  Hawkins. 
Life ,  i.  363,  n .  3.  See  also  ante , 
i.  214. 

3  Life ,  ii.  409. 

‘  Pope  was  so  very  insensible  to 
the  charms  of  music  that  he  once 
asked  Dr.  Arbuthnot,  whether  the 


rapture  which  the  company  expressed 
upon  hearing  the  compositions  and 
performance  of  Handel  did  not  pro¬ 
ceed  wholly  from  affectation.’  War- 
ton’s  Pope’s  Works ,  v.  235  n. 

‘Newton,  hearing  Handel  play  on 
the  harpsichord,  could  find  nothing 
worthy  to  remark  but  the  elasticity 
of  his  fingers.  At  another  time,  being 
asked  his  opinion  of  poetry,  he  quoted 
a  sentiment  of  Barrow,  that  it  was 
ingenious  nonsense.’  Ib.  iii.  176  n, 

4  Ante}  i.  329. 


hedge 


104 


Extracts  from 


hedge ;  and  little  of  the  dust  that  had  once  settled  on  his  outer 
garments  was  ever  known  to  have  been  disturbed  by  the  brush x. 
(Page  327.) 


The  proposal  for  the  Dictionary,  and  other  of  his  writings, 
had  exhibited  Johnson  to  view  in  the  character  of  a  poet  and 
a  philologist:  to  his  moral  qualities,  and  his  concern  for  the 
interests  of  religion  and  virtue,  the  world  were  for  some  time 
strangers  ;  but  no  sooner  were  these  manifested  by  the  publica¬ 
tion  of  the  Rambler  and  the  Adventurer,  than  he  was  looked 
up  to  as  a  master  of  human  life,  a  practical  Christian  and 
a  divine ;  his  acquaintance  was  sought  by  persons  of  the  first 
eminence  in  literature;  and  his  house,  in  respect  of  the  con¬ 
versations  there,  became  an  academy1 2.  One  person,  in  par¬ 
ticular,  who  seems,  for  a  great  part  of  his  life,  to  have  affected 
the  character  of  a  patron  of  learned  and  ingenious  men,  in 
a  letter  which  I  have  seen,  made  him  a  tender  of  his  friendship 
in  terms  to  this  effect : — 4 * * * 8  That  having  perused  many  of  his 
writings,  and  thence  conceived  a  high  opinion  of  his  learning, 
his  genius,  and  moral  qualities,  if  Mr.  Johnson  was  inclined  to 
enlarge  the  circle  of  his  acquaintance,  he  [the  letter-writer] 
should  be  glad  to  be  admitted  into  the  number  of  his  friends, 
and  to  receive  a  visit  from  him.’ — This  person  was  Mr.  Doding- 
ton,  afterwards  lord  Melcombe,  the  value  and  honour  of  whose 
patronage,  to  speak  the  truth,  may  in  some  degree  be  estimated 
by  his  diary  lately  published3.  How  Johnson  received  this 


1  Charlotte  Burney,  writing  in  1777 
or  1778,  says: — ‘Dr.  Johnson  was 
immensely  smart ,  for  him — for  he 
had  not  only  a  very  decent  tidy  suit 
of  cloathes  on,  but  his  hands,  face, 
and  linen  were  clean,  and  he  treated 

us  with  his  worsted  wig,  which  Mr. 

Thrale  made  him  a  present  of,  be¬ 

cause  it  scarce  ever  gets  out  of  curl, 

and  he  generally  diverts  himself  with 
laying  [sic]  down  just  after  he  has 

got  a  fresh  wig  on.’  Early  Diary  of 

F.  Burney ,  ii.  287. 

8  Hume,  in  1767,  complained  that 


‘  men  of  letters  have  here  [in  London] 
no  place  of  rendezvous ;  and  are, 
indeed,  sunk  and  forgotten  in  the 
general  torrent  of  the  world.’  Bur¬ 
ton’s  Hume,  ii.  385.  For  Johnson’s 
‘  levee  ’  see  ante,  i.  414  ;  Life,  ii.  1 18. 

3  Horace  Walpole  wrote  on  June  3, 
1784  [Letters,  viii.  479) : — ‘  A  nephew 
of  Lord  Melcombe’s  heir  has  pub¬ 
lished  that  Lord’s  Diary.  Though 
drawn  by  his  own  hand,  and  certainly 
meant  to  flatter  himself,  it  is  a  truer 
portrait  than  any  of  his  hirelings 
would  have  given.  Never  was  such 

invitation 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


io5 


invitation,  I  know  not :  as  it  was  conveyed  in  very  handsome 
expressions,  it  required  some  apology  for  declining  it,  and 
I  cannot  but  think  he  framed  one.  (Page  328.) 

Invitations  to  dine  with  such  of  those  as  he  liked,  he  so  seldom 
declined,  that  to  a  friend  of  his,  he  said,  ‘  I  never  but  once,  upon 
a  resolution  to  employ  myself  in  study,  balked  1  an  invitation  out 
to  dinner,  and  then  I  stayed  at  home  and  did  nothing 2.’  (Page 

34 1.) 

Johnson  looked  upon  eating  as  a  very  serious  business,  and 
enjoyed  the  pleasure  of  a  splendid  table  equally  with  most  men. 
It  was,  at  no  time  of  his  life,  pleasing  to  see  him  at  a  meal  ;  the 
greediness  with  which  he  ate,  his  total  inattention  to  those 
among  whom  he  was  seated,  and  his  profound  silence  in  the 
hour  of  refection,  were  circumstances  that  at  the  instant  degraded 
him,  and  shewed  him  to  be  more  a  sensualist  than  a  philo¬ 
sopher  3.  Moreover,  he  was  a  lover  of  tea  to  an  excess  hardly 
credible  ;  whenever  it  appeared,  he  was  almost  raving,  and  by 
his  impatience  to  be  served,  his  incessant  calls  for  those  in¬ 
gredients  which  make  that  liquor  palatable,  and  the  haste  with 
which  he  swallowed  it  down,  he  seldom  failed  to  make  that 
a  fatigue  to  every  one  else4,  which  was  intended  as  a  general 


a  composition  of  vanity,  versatility, 
and  servility.  In  short,  there  is  but 
one  feature  wanting — his  wit,  of  which 
in  his  whole  book  there  are  not  three 
sallies.  I  often  said  of  Lord  Hervey 
and  Dodington,  that  they  were  the 
only  two  I  ever  knew  who  were  al¬ 
ways  aiming  at  wit,  and  yet  generally 
found  it.’ 

1  Johnson  gives  as  the  third  mean¬ 
ing  of  balk  ‘to  omit,  or  refuse  any¬ 
thing.’  Hawkins  uses  it  post,  p.  1 15. 

2  ‘  I  fancy,’  writes  Dr.  Maxwell,  ‘  he 
must  have  read  and  wrote  chiefly  in 
the  night,  for  I  can  scarcely  recollect 
that  he  ever  refused  going  with  me 
to  a  tavern.’  Life,  ii.  119.  For  the 
hours  at  which  he  wrote  see  post  in 
Steevens’s  Ajiecdotes. 


3  Percy  remarks  on  the  passage  in 
the  Life  (i.  468)  where  Boswell  de¬ 
scribes  Johnson’s  voracious  eating : — 
‘  This  is  extremely  exaggerated.  He 
ate  heartily,  having  a  good  appetite, 
but  not  with  the  voraciousness  de¬ 
scribed  by  Mr.  Boswell ;  all  whose 
extravagant  accounts  must  be  read 
with  caution  and  abatement.’  Ander¬ 
son’s  Johnson ,  ed.  1815,  p.  471. 

4  In  John  Knox’s  Tour  through 
the  Highlands ,  ed.  1787,  p.  143,  it  is 
stated  that  at  Dun  vegan  ‘  Lady  Mac- 
leod,  who  had  repeatedly  helped 
Dr.  Johnson  to  sixteen  dishes  or  up¬ 
wards  of  tea,  asked  him  if  a  small 
basin  would  not  save  him  trouble, 
and  be  more  agreeable.  “  I  wonder, 
Madam,”  answered  he  roughly,  “why 

refreshment 


io6 


Extracts  from 


refreshment.  Such  signs  of  effeminacy  as  these,  suited  but  ill 
with  the  appearance  of  a  man,  who,  for  his  bodily  strength  and 
stature,  has  been  compared  to  Polyphemus.  (Page  355-) 

All  this  while,  the  booksellers,  who  by  his  own  confession 
were  his  best  friends1,  had  their  eyes  upon  Johnson,  and  re¬ 
flected  with  some  concern  on  what  seemed  to  them  a  mis¬ 
application  of  his  talents.  The  furnishing  magazines,  reviews, 
and  even  news-papers,  with  literary  intelligence,  and  the  authors 
of  books,  who  could  not  write  them  for  themselves,  with  dedica¬ 
tions  and  prefaces,  they  looked  on  as  employments  beneath  him, 
who  had  attained  to  such  eminence  as  a  writer  ;  they,  therefore, 
in  the  year  1756,  foupd  out  for  him  such  a  one  as  seemed  to 
afford  a  prospect  both  of  amusement  and  profit :  this  was  an 
edition  of  Shakespeare’s  dramatic  works,  which,  by  a  concur¬ 
rence  of  circumstances,  was  now  become  necessary,  to  answer 
the  increasing  demand  of  the  public  for  the  writings  of  that 
author 2 . 


A  stranger  to  Johnson’s  character  and  temper  would  have 
thought,  that  the  study  of  an  author,  whose  skill  in  the  science 
of  human  life  was  so  deep,  and  whose  perfections  were  so  many 
and  various  as  to  be  above  the  reach  of  all  praise,  must  have 
been  the  most  pleasing  employment  that  his  imagination  could 
suggest,  but  it  was  not  so  :  in  a  visit  that  he  one  morning  made 
to  me,  I  congratulated  him  on  his  being  now  engaged  in  a  work 
that  suited  his  genius,  and  that,  requiring  none  of  that  severe 
application  which  his  Dictionary  had  condemned  him  to,  I 


all  the  ladies  ask  me  such  imperti¬ 
nent  questions.  It  is  to  save  your¬ 
selves  trouble,  Madam,  and  not  me.” 
The  lady  was  silent  and  went  on  with 
her  task.’ 

Boswell  tells  nothing  of  this ;  it 
is  probable  that  the  number  of  the 
cups  and  the  roughness  of  the  answer 
were  increased  by  tradition.  Ante , 

ii.  76. 

1  ‘  I  once  said  to  him,  “  I  am  sorry, 
Sir,  you  did  not  get  more  for  your 


Dictionary .”  His  answer  was,  “  I 
am  sorry  too.  But  it  was  very  well. 
The  booksellers  are  generous  liberal- 
minded  men.”  ’  Life,  i.  304. 

2  Ante,  i.  415.  ‘The  seventeenth 
century  had  been  satisfied  with  four 
editions  of  his  collected  plays.  In  the 
first  hundred  years  after  his  death 
there  were  but  six ;  in  the  next  fifty 
years  there  were  three  and  twenty.’ 
Writers  and  Readers,  by  George 
Birkbeck  Hill,  p.  64. 


doubted 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson .  107 

doubted  not  would  be  executed  con  amove. — His  answer  was, 

‘  I  look  upon  this  as  I  did  upon  the  Dictionary :  it  is  all  work, 
and  my  inducement  to  it  is  not  love  or  desire  of  fame,  but  the 
want  of  money,  which  is  the  only  motive  to  writing  that  I  know 
of1.’ — And  the  event  was  evidence  to  me,  that  in  this  speech  he 
declared  his  genuine  sentiments ;  for  neither  in  the  first  place 
did  he  set  himself  to  collect  early  editions  of  his  author 2,  old 
plays,  translations  of  histories,  and  of  the  classics,  and  other 
materials  necessary  for  his  purpose,  nor  could  he  be  prevailed  on 
to  enter  into  that  course  of  reading,  without  which  it  seemed 
impossible  to  come  at  the  sense  of  his  author3.  It  was  pro¬ 
voking  to  all  his  friends  to  see  him  waste  his  days,  his  weeks,  and 
his  months  so  long,  that  they  feared  a  mental  lethargy  had 
seized  him,  out  of  which  he  would  pever  recover.  In  this, 
however,  they  were  happily  deceived,  for,  after  two  years  in¬ 
activity,  they  found  him  roused  to  action,  and  engaged — not  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  work,  for  the  completion  whereof  he  stood 
doubly  bound,  but  in  a  new  one,  the  furnishing  a  series  of 
periodical  essays,  intitled,  and  it  may  be  thought  not  improperly, 
*  The  Idler  V  as  his  motive  to  the  employment  was  aversion  to 
a  labour  he  had  undertaken,  though  in  the  execution,  it  must  be 
owned,  it  merited  a  better  name.  (Page  361.) 

About  this  time  he  had,  from  a  friend  who  highly  esteemed 
him,  the  offer  of  a  living5,  of  which  he  might  have  rendered 
himself  capable  by  entering  into  holy  orders :  it  was  a  rectory, 
in  a  pleasant  country,  and  of  such  a  yearly  value  as  might  have 
tempted  one  in  better  circumstances  than  himself  to  accept  it ; 
but  he  had  scruples  about  the  duties  of  the  ministerial  function, 
that  he  could  not,  after  deliberation,  overcome.  eI  have  not,’ 
said  he,  ‘  the  requisites  for  the  office,  and  I  cannot,  in  my 


1  Life,  iii.  19  ;  ante ,  ii.  90.  When 
he  had  finished  his  Shakespeare  he 
wrote: — ‘To  tell  the  truth,  as  I  felt 
no  solicitude  about  this  work,  I  re¬ 
ceive  no  great  comfort  from  its  con¬ 
clusion.’  Letters ,  i.  123. 

8  ‘  I  collated  such  copies  as  I  could 
procure,  and  wished  for  more,  but 


have  not  found  the  collectors  of  these 
rarities  very  communicative.’  Works, 
v.  146. 

3  Ante,  i.  473. 

4  Ante,  i.  415  ;  Life ,  i.  330. 

5  It  was  a  living  in  Lincolnshire, 
offered  him  by  Bennet  Langton’s 
father.  Ib.  i.  320. 


conscience 


io8 


Extracts  from 


conscience,  shear  that  flock  which  I  am  unable  to  feed.’ — Upon 
conversing  with  him  on  that  inability  which  was  his  reason  for 
declining  the  offer,  it  was  found  to  be  a  suspicion  of  his  patience 
to  undergo  the  fatigue  of  catechising  and  instructing  a  great 
number  of  poor  ignorant  persons,  who,  in  religious  matters,  had, 
perhaps,  every  thing  to  learn.  (Page  365.) 

He  had  removed,  about  the  beginning  of  the  year  1760,  to 
chambers  two  doors  down  the  Inner-Temple  lane ;  and  I  have 
been  told  by  his  neighbour  at  the  corner,  that  during  the  time 
he  dwelt  there,  more  enquiries  were  made  at  his  shop  for 
Mr.  Johnson,  than  for  all  the  inhabitants  put  together  of  both 
the  Inner  and  Middle  Temple1.  (Page  383.) 

Johnson  had,  early  in  his  life,  been  a  dabbler  in  physic2, 
and  laboured  under  some  secret  bodily  infirmities  that  gave  him 
occasion  once  to  say  to  me,  that  he  knew  not  what  it  was  to  be 
totally  free  from  pain3.  He  now  drew  into  a  closer  intimacy 
with  him  a  man,  with  whom  he  had  been  acquainted  from  the 
year  1746  4,  one  of  the  lowest  practitioners  in  the  art  of  healing 
that  ever  sought  a  livelihood  by  it :  him  he  consulted  in  all  that 
related  to  his  health,  and  made  so  necessary  to  him  as  hardly  to 
be  able  to  live  without  him. 

The  name  of  this  person  was  Robert  Levett.  An  account  of 
him  is  given  in  the  Gentleman’s  Magazine  for  February  1785  : 
an  earlier  than  that,  I  have  now  lying  before  me,  in  a  letter 
from  a  person  in  the  country  to  Johnson,  written  in  answer  to 
one  in  which  he  had  desired  to  be  informed  of  some  particulars 
respecting  his  friend  Levett,  then  lately  deceased  5.  The  sub¬ 
stance  of  this  information  is  as  follows  : 

He  was  born  at  Kirk  Ella,  a  parish  about  five  miles  distant 
from  Hull,  and  lived  with  his  parents  till  about  twenty  years  of 
age.  He  had  acquired  some  knowledge  of  the  Latin  language, 


1  Life ,  i.  350,  n .  3 ;  Letters ,  i.  90, 
n.  3  ;  ante ,  i.  416. 

2  Not  only  early,  but  through  most 
of  his  life,  ‘he  was  a  great  dabbler 
in  physic.’  Life ,  iii.  152. 

3  He  wrote  to  Hector  towards  the 


end  of  his  life  : — ‘  My  health  has 
been  from  my  twentieth  year  such 
as  has  seldom  afforded  me  a  single 
day  of  ease.’  Ib.  iv.  147. 

4  Life ,  iv.  137. 

5  Ib.  iv.  143  ;  Letters ,  ii.  243. 


and 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


109 


* 


and  had  a  propensity  to  learning,  which  his  parents  not  being 
able  to  gratify,  he  went  to  live  as  a  shopman  with  a  woollen- 
draper  at  Hull :  with  him  he  stayed  two  years,  during  which 
time  he  learned  from  a  neighbour  of  his  master  somewhat  of  the 
practice  of  physic :  at  the  end  thereof  he  came  to  London,  with 
a  view  possibly  to  improve  himself  in  that  profession  ;  but  by 
some  strange  accident  was  led  to  pursue  another  course,  and 
became  steward,  or  some  other  upper  servant,  to  the  then  lord 
Cardigan  [or  Cadogan] ;  and  having  saved  some  money,  he 
took  a  resolution  to  travel,  and  visited  France  and  Italy  for  the 
purpose,  as  his  letters  mention,  of  gaining  experience  in  physic, 
and,  returning  to  London  with  a  valuable  library  which  he  had 
collected  abroad,  placed  one  of  his  brothers  apprentice  to  a 
mathematical-instrument  maker,  and  provided  for  the  education 
of  another.  After  this  he  went  to  Paris,  and,  for  improvement, 
attended  the  hospitals  in  that  city.  At  the  end  of  five  years  he 
returned  to  England,  and  taking  lodgings  in  the  house  of  an 
attorney  in  Northumberland  court,  near  Charing  cross,  he 
became  a  practicer  of  physic.  The  letter  adds,  that  he  was 
about  seventy-eight  at  the  time  of  his  death. 

The  account  of  Levett  in  the  Gentleman’s  Magazine  is  anony¬ 
mous  ;  I  nevertheless  give  it  verbatim,  and  mean  hereafter  to 
insert  a  letter  of  Johnson’s  to  Dr.  Lawrence,  notifying  his  death, 
and  stanzas  of  his  writing  on  that  occasion  \ 

‘  Mr.  Levett,  though  an  Englishman  by  birth,  became  early 
in  life  a  waiter  at  a  coffee-house  in  Paris.  The  surgeons  who 
frequented  it,  finding  him  of  an  inquisitive  turn,  and  attentive 
to  their  conversation,  made  a  purse  for  him,  and  gave  him  some 
instructions  in  their  art.  They  afterwards  furnished  him  with 
the  means  of  other  knowledge,  by  procuring  him  free  admission 
to  such  lectures  in  pharmacy  and  anatomy  as  were  read  by  the 
ablest  professors  of  that  period.  Hence  his  introduction  to 
a  business,  which  afforded  him  a  continual,  though  slender 
maintenance.  Where  the  middle  part  of  his  life  was  spent,  is 
uncertain.  He  resided,  however,  above  twenty  years  under  the 
roof  of  Johnson,  who  never  wished  him  to  be  regarded  as  an 


1  Life,  iv.  137. 


inferior 


no 


Extracts  from 


inferior,  or  treated  him  like  a  dependent x.  He  breakfasted  with 
the  doctor  every  morning,  and  perhaps  was  seen  no  more  by 
him  till  mid-night.  Much  of  the  day  was  employed  in  attend¬ 
ance  on  his  patients,  who  were  chiefly  of  the  lowest  rank  of 
tradesmen.  The  remainder  of  his  hours  he  dedicated  to  Hunter’s 
lectures1 2,  and  to  as  many  different  opportunities  of  improve¬ 
ment,  as  he  could  meet  with  on  the  same  gratuitous  conditions. 
“All  his  medical  knowledge,”  said  Johnson,  “and  it  is  not  in¬ 
considerable  3,  was  obtained  through  the  ear.  Though  he  buys 
books,  he  seldom  looks  into  them,  or  discovers  any  power  by 
which  he  can  be  supposed  to  judge  of  an  author’s  merit.” 

‘  Before  he  became  a  constant  inmate  of  the  Doctor’s  house, 
he  married,  when  he  was  near  sixty,  a  woman  of  the  town,  wTho 
had  persuaded  him  (notwithstanding  their  place  of  congress  was 
a  small-coal  shed  in  Fetter-lane)  that  she  was  nearly  related  to 
a  man  of  fortune,  but  was  injuriously  kept  by  him  out  of  large 
possessions.  It  is  almost  needless  to  add,  that  both  parties  were 
disappointed  in  their  views.  If  Levett  took  her  for  an  heiress, 
who  in  time  might  be  rich,  she  regarded  him  as  a  physician 
already  in  considerable  practice. — Compared  with  the  marvels 
of  this  transaction,  as  Johnson  himself  declared  when  relating 
them,  the  tales  in  the  Arabian  Nights’  Entertainments  seem 
familiar  occurrences.  Never  was  infant  mote  completely  duped 
than  our  hero.  He  had  not  been  married  four  months,  before 
a  writ  was  taken  out  against  him,  for  debts  incurred  by  his 
wife. — He  was  secreted,  and  his  friend  then  procured  him 
a  protection  from  a  foreign  minister 4.  In  a  short  time  after- 


1  £  Dr.  Johnson  has  frequently  ob¬ 
served,  that  Levett  was  indebted  to 
him  for  nothing  more  than  house- 
room,  his  share  in  a  penny  loaf  at 
breakfast,  and  now  and  then  a  dinner 
on  a  Sunday.’  Note  by  Hawkins. 

2  Both  William  Hunter  and  his 
brother  John  lectured.  For  William 
Hunter,  see  Lettei's,  ii.  339. 

3  ‘  He  had  acted  for  many  years  in 
the  capacity  of  surgeon  and  apothe¬ 

cary  to  Johnson,  under  the  direction 
of  Dr.  Lawrence.’  Note  by  Hawkins. 


4  ‘May  13,  1771.  A  cause  was 
determined  in  the  King’s  Bench,  in 
favour  of  a  Merchant  who  had  de¬ 
mands  on  a  person  protected  by  a 
foreign  Ambassador,  that  person  not 
being  a  real  servant  brought  over 
with  the  Ambassador,  but  having 
since  procured  his  protection.  Of 
all  the  causes  determined  in  law 
within  these  twenty  years  perhaps 
no  one  is  of  more  importance  than 
the  present.’  Gentleman' s  Magazine , 
i77b  P- 235- 

wards, 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson . 


hi 


wards,  she  ran  away  from  him,  and  was  tried,  providentially,  in 
his  opinion,  for  picking  pockets  at  the  Old  Bailey.  Her  hus¬ 
band  was,  with  difficulty,  prevented  from  attending  the  court, 
in  the  hope  she  would  be  hanged.  She  pleaded  her  own  cause, 
and  was  acquitted  ;  a  separation  between  this  ill-starred  couple 
took  place;  and  Dr.  Johnson  then  took  Levett  home,  where  he 
continued  till  his  death,  which  happened  suddenly,  without 
pain,  Jan.  17,  1782.  His  vanity  in  supposing  that  a  young 
woman  of  family  and  fortune  should  be  enamoured  of  him, 
Dr.  Johnson  thought,  deserved  some  check. — As  no  relations  of 
his  were  known  to  Johnson,  he  advertised  for  them  k  In  the 
course  of  a  few  weeks  an  heir  at  law  appeared,  and  ascertained 
his  title  to  what  effects  the  deceased  had  left  behind. 

‘  Levett’s  character  was  rendered  valuable  by  repeated  proof 
of  honesty,  tenderness,  and  gratitude  to  his  benefactor,  as  well 
as  by  an  unwearied  diligence  in  his  profession1 2. — His  single 
failing  was,  an  occasional  departure  from  sobriety.  Johnson 
would  observe,  he  was,  perhaps,  the  only  man  who  ever  became 
intoxicated  through  motives  of  prudence.  He  reflected,  that  if 
he  refused  the  gin  or  brandy  offered  him  by  some  of  his  patients, 
he  could  have  been  no  gainer  by  their  cure,  as  they  might  have 
had  nothing  else  to  bestow  on  him.  This  habit  of  taking  a  fee, 
in  whatever  shape  it  was  exhibited,  could  not  be  put  off  by 
advice  or  admonition  of  any  kind.  He  would  swallow  what  he 
did  not  like,  nay,  what  he  knew  would  injure  him,  rather  than 
go  home  with  an  idea,  that  his  skill  had  been  exerted  without 
recompense.  “Had  (said  Johnson)  all  his  patients  maliciously 
combined  to  reward  him  with  meat  and  strong  liquors  instead  of 
money,  he  would  either  have  burst,  like  the  dragon  in  the 
Apocrypha  3,  through  repletion,  or  been  scorched  up,  like  Portia, 
by  swallowing  fire4.”  But  let  not  from  hence  an  imputation 
of  rapaciousness  be  fixed  upon  him.  Though  he  took  all  that 


1  Life,  iv.  143. 

2  ‘  He  was  an  old  and  faithful 
friend,5  Johnson  recorded  in  his 

Diary.  Ante ,  i.  102.  ‘  He  was  very 

useful  to  the  poor,’  he  wrote  to  Mr. 

Langton.  Life ,  iv.  145. 


3  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  verse  27. 

‘  With  this  she  fell  distract, 
And,  her  attendants  absent, 
swallow’d  fire.5 

Julius  Caesar,  Act  iv.  sc.  3,  1.  155* 


was 


1 12 


Extracts  from 


was  offered  him,  he  demanded  nothing  from  the  poor,  nor  was 
known  in  any  instance  to  have  enforced  the  payment  of  even 
what  was  strictly  his  due. 

‘  His  person  was  middle-sized  and  thin  ;  his  visage  swarthy, 
adust  and  corrugated.  His  conversation,  except  on  professional 
subjects,  barren.  When  in  deshabille,  he  might  have  been  mis¬ 
taken  for  an  alchemist,  whose  complexion  had  been' hurt  by  the 
fumes  of  the  crucible,  and  whose  clothes  had  suffered  from  the 
sparks  of  the  furnace. 

‘  Such  was  Levett,  whose  whimsical  frailty,  if  weighed  against 
his  good  and  useful  qualities,  was 

“A  floating  atom,  dust  that  falls  unheeded 
Into  the  adverse  scale,  nor  shakes  the  balance.” 

Ire?ie ,  Act  i.  sc.  3.’ 

To  this  character  I  here  add  as  a  supplement  to  it,  a  dictum 
of  Johnson  respecting  Levett,  viz.  that  his  external  appearance 
and  behaviour  were  such,  that  he  disgusted  the  rich,  and  terrified 
the  poor T. 

But  notwithstanding  all  these  offensive  particulars,  Johnson, 
whose  credulity  in  some  instances  was  as  great  as  his  incredulity 
in  others,  conceived  of  him  as  a  skilful  medical  professor,  and 
thought  himself  happy  in  having  so  near  his  person  one  who  was 
to  him,  not  solely  a  physician,  a  surgeon,  or  an  apothecary,  but 
all.  In  extraordinary  cases  he,  however,  availed  himself  of  the 
assistance  of  his  valued  friend  Dr.  Lawrence,  a  man  of  whom,  in 
respect  of  his  piety,  learning,  and  skill  in  his  profession,  it  may 
almost  be  said,  the  world  was  not  worthy,  inasmuch  as  it  suffered 
his  talents,  for  the  whole  of  his  life,  to  remain,  in  a  great 
measure,  unemployed,  and  himself  end  his  days  in  sorrow  and 
obscurity2.  .  .  . 

In  his  [Dr.  Lawrence’s]  endeavours  to  attain  to  eminence,  it 


1  Percy  described  Levett  as  ‘  a 
modest,  reserved  man  ;  humble  and 
unaffected,  ready  to  execute  any 
commission  for  Johnson,  and  grate¬ 
ful  for  his  patronage.’  Anderson’s 
Johnson ,  ed.  1815,  p.  181.  ‘Levett, 
Madam,  (said  Johnson),  is  a  brutal 


fellow,  but  I  have  a  good  regard 
for  him ;  for  his  brutality  is  in  his 
manners,  not  his  mind.’  Mme. 
D’Arblay’s  Diary,  i.  114. 

2  An/e>  i.  104  ;  Life ,  ii.  296,  n.  1 ; 
iv.  143. 


was 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


H3 

was  his  misfortune  to  fail :  he  was  above  those  arts  by  which 
popularity  is  acquired,  and  had  besides  some  personal  defects  and 
habits  which  stood  in  his  way;  a  vacuity  of  countenance  very 
unfavourable  to  an  opinion  of  his  learning  or  sagacity,  and 
certain  convulsive  motions  of  the  head  and  features  that  gave 
pain  to  the  beholders,  and  drew  off  attention  to  all  that  he 
said.  ... 

The  sincere  and  lasting  friendship  that  subsisted  between 
Johnson  and  Levett,  may  serve  to  shew,  that  although  a  simi¬ 
larity  of  dispositions  and  qualities  has  a  tendency  to  beget 
affection,  or  something  very  nearly  resembling  it,  it  may  be 
contracted  and  subsist  where  this  inducement  is  wanting ;  for 
hardly  were  ever  two  men  less  like  each  other,  in  this  respect, 
than  were  they.  Levett  had  not  an  understanding  capable  of 
comprehending  the  talents  of  Johnson:  the  mind  of  Johnson 
was  therefore,  as  to  him,  a  blank;  and  Johnson,  had  the  eye 
of  his  mind  been  more  penetrating  than  it  was,  could  not 
discern,  what  did  not  exist,  any  particulars  in  Levett’s  character 
that  at  all  resembled  his  own.  He  had  no  learning,  and  con¬ 
sequently  was  an  unfit  companion  for  a  learned  man ;  and 
though  it  may  be  said,  that  having  lived  for  some  years  abroad, 
he  must  have  seen  and  remarked  many  things  that  would  have 
afforded  entertainment  in  the  relation,  this  advantage  was 
counterbalanced  by  an  utter  inability  for  continued  conversation, 
taciturnity  being  one  of  the  most  obvious  features  in  his  char¬ 
acter1:  the  consideration  of  all  which  particulars  almost  impels 
me  to  say,  that  Levett  admired  Johnson  because  others  admired 
him,  and  that  Johnson  in  pity  loved  Levett,  because  few  others 
could  find  any  thing  in  him  to  love. 

And  here  I  cannot  forbear  remarking,  that,  almost  throughout 
his  life,  poverty  and  distressed  circumstances  seemed  to  be  the 
strongest  of  all  recommendations  to  his  favour.  When  asked 
by  one  of  his  most  intimate  friends,  how  he  could  bear  to  be 

1  ‘  He  was  (says  Boswell)  of  a  to  Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘  My  house  has  lost 
strange  grotesque  appearance,  stiff  Levett,  a  man  who  took  interest  in 
and  formal  in  his  manner,  and  seldom  everything,  and  therefore  ready  at 
said  a  word  while  any  company  was  conversation.’  Letters ,  ii.  309. 
present.’  Life ,  i.  243.  Johnson  wrote 

VOL.  II. 


I 


surrounded 


Extracts  from 


114 


surrounded  by  such  necessitous  and  undeserving  people  as  he 
had  about  him,  his  answer  was,  ‘  If  I  did  not  assist  them  no  one 
else  would,  and  they  must  be  lost  for  want.’  (Page  396.) 


Johnson  was  a  great  lover  of  penitents1,  and  of  all  such  men 
as,  in  their  conversation,  made  professions  of  piety2;  of  this 
man 3  he  would  say,  that  he  was  one  of  the  most  pious  of  all  his 
acquaintance,  but  in  this,  as  he  frequently  was  in  the  judgment 
he  formed  of  others,  he  was  mistaken.  It  is  possible  that 
Southwell  might,  in  his  conversation,  express  such  sentiments  of 
religion  and  moral  obligation,  as  served  to  shew  that  he  was  not 
an  infidel,  but  he  seldom  went  sober  to  bed 4,  and  as  seldom  rose 
from  it  before  noon. 

He  was  also  an  admirer  of  such  as  he  thought  well-bred  men. 
What  was  his  notion  of  good  breeding  I  could  never  learn.  If 
it  was  not  courtesy  and  affability,  it  could  to  him  be  nothing  ; 
for  he  was  an  incompetent  judge  of  graceful  attitudes  and 
motions,  and  of  the  ritual  of  behaviour.  Of  lord  Southwell 5, 
the  brother  of  the  above  person,  and  of  Tom  Hervey,.  a  pro¬ 
fligate,  worthless  man6,  the  author  of  the  letter  to  Sir  Thomas 
Hanmer  1 ,  and  who  had  nothing  in  his  external  appearance  that 
could  in  the  least  recommend  him,  he  was  used  to  say,  they 
were  each  of  them  a  model  for  the  first  man  of  quality  in  the 
kingdom  8.  (Page  406.) 


x  Life ,  iv.  406,  n.  1. 

2  Reynolds  said  that  Johnson  1  ap¬ 
peared  to  have  little  suspicion  of  hy¬ 
pocrisy  in  religion.’  Ante,  ii.  9,  n.  I. 

3  Edmund  Southwell.  Letters,  \.  205. 

4  Johnson  said  of  his  old  school¬ 
fellow,  the  Rev.  Charles  Congreve, 
‘  He  has  an  elderly  woman  .  .  .  who 
encourages  him  in  drinking,  in  which 
he  is  very  willing  to  be  encouraged ; 
not  that  he  gets  drunk,  for  he  is 
a  very  pious  man,  but  he  is  always 
muddy.’  Life,  ii.  460. 

5  ‘  Lord  Southwell,’  he  said,  ‘  was 
the  highest-bred  man  without  in¬ 
solence  that  I  ever  was  in  company 
with  ;  the  most  qualitied  I  ever  saw.’ 
Life ,  iv.  173. 


6  ‘Tom  Hervey,  who  died  t’  other 
day,  though  a  vicious  man,  was  one 
of  the  genteelest  men  that  ever  lived.’ 
Lb.  ii.  341.  See  ante,  i.  254. 

Horace  Walpole  wrote  on  Jan.  24, 
1775  {Letters, vi.  182): — ‘Tom  Hervey 
is  dead ;  after  sending  for  his  wife, 
and  re-acknowledging  her  in  pathetic 
heroics.’ 

7  Life,  ii.  32,  n.  1  ;  33,  n.  2. 

8  ‘  Garrick  used  to  tell,  that  John¬ 
son  said  of  an  actor,  who  played  Sir 
Harry  Wildair  at  Lichfield,  “  There 
is  a  courtly  vivacity  about  the  fellow  ” ; 
when,  in  fact,  according  to  Garrick’s 
account,  “  he  was  the  most  vulgar 
ruffian  that  ever  went  upon  boards .”  ’ 
lb.  ii.  465. 


Johnson 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson . 


1T5 


Johnson  was  now  at  ease  in  his  circumstances1:  he  wanted  his 
usual  motive  to  impel  him  to  the  exertion  of  his  talents,  neces¬ 
sity,  and  he  sunk  into  indolence.  Whoever  called  in  on  him  at 
about  mid-day,  found  him  and  Levett  at  breakfast,  Johnson  in 
deshabille,  as  just  risen  from  bed,  and  Levett  filling  out  tea  for 
himself  and  his  patron  alternately,  no  conversation  passing 
between  them.  All  that  visited  him  at  these  hours  were 
welcome.  A  night’s  rest,  and  breakfast,  seldom  failed  to  refresh 
and  fit  him  for  discourse,  and  whoever  withdrew  went  too 
soon2.  His  invitations  to  dinners  abroad  were  numerous,  and 
he  seldom  balked  them.  At  evening  parties,  where  were  no 
cards,  he  very  often  made  one ;  and  from  these,  when  once 
engaged,  most  unwillingly  retired. 

In  the  relaxation  of  mind,  which  almost  any  one  might  have 
foreseen  would  follow  the  grant  of  his  pension 3,  he  made  little 
account  of  that  lapse  of  time,  on  which,  in  many  of  his  papers, 
he  so  severely  moralizes.  And,  though  he  was  so  exact  an 
observer  of  the  passing  minutes,  as  frequently,  after  his  coming 
from  church,  to  note  in  his  diary  how  many  the  service  took  up 
in  reading,  and  the  sermon  in  preaching4;  he  seemed  to  forget 
how  many  years  had  passed  since  he  had  begun  to  take  in  sub¬ 
scriptions  for  his  edition  of  Shakespeare.  Such  a  torpor  had 
seized  his  faculties,  as  not  all  the  remonstrances  of  his  friends 
were  able  to  cure :  applied  to  some  minds,  they  would  have 
burned  like  caustics,  but  Johnson  felt  them  not5.  (Page  435.) 


He  removed  from  the  Temple  into  a  house  in  Johnson’s  court, 
Fleet-street,  and  invited  thither  his  friend  Mrs.  Williams6.  An 


1  Through  his  pension.  Ante ,  i. 

417;  Life ,  i.  372.  2  lb.  ii.  118. 

3  This  ‘relaxation  of  mind’  pre¬ 

ceded  his  pension.  He  had  for  some 
time  been  ‘living  in  poverty,  total 

idleness  and  the  pride  of  literature.’ 
Ante ,  i.  416.  He  brought  the  Idler 
to  an  end  on  April  5,  1760 ;  after  that 
he  did  next  to  nothing  for  some  years. 

His  Shakesfeare  was  not  published 
till  1765.  His  pension  was  granted 
in  the  summer  of  1762. 


4  This  diary  is  not  in  print. 

5  Life ,  i.  319. 

6  She  had  lived  with  him  in  Gough 
Square  {Life,  i.  232),  but  had  gone 
into  lodgings  when  he  went  into 
chambers,  first  in  Staple  Inn,  then 
in  Gray’s  Inn,  and  lastly  in  Inner 
Temple  Lane.  Ib.  i.  350,  n.  3.  In 
Scotland,  referring  to  his  house  in 
Johnson’s  Court,  he  described  him¬ 
self  as  ‘Johnson  of  that  Ilk.’  Ib.  ii. 
427,  n.  2. 

2 


upper 


n6 


Extracts  from 


upper  room,  which  had  the  advantages  of  a  good  light  and  free 
air,  he  fitted  up  for  a  study z,  and  furnished  with  books,  chosen 
with  so  little  regard  to  editions  or  their  external  appearance,  as 
shewed  they  were  intended  for  use,  and  that  he  disdained  the 
ostentation  of  learning.  Here  he  was  in  a  situation  and  circum¬ 
stances  that  enabled  him  to  enjoy  the  visits  of  his  friends,  and 
to  receive  them  in  a  manner  suitable  to  the  rank  and  condition 
of  many  of  them.  A  silver  standish,  and  some  useful  plate, 
which  he  had  been  prevailed  on  to  accept  as  pledges  of  kindness 
from  some  who  most  esteemed  him,  together  with  furniture  that 
would  not  have  disgraced  a  better  dwelling,  banished  those 
appearances  of  squalid  indigence,  which,  in  his  less  happy  days, 
disgusted  those  who  came  to  see  him1  2. 

In  one  of  his  diaries  he  noted  down  a  resolution  to  take  a  seat 
in  the  church  ;  this  he  might  possibly  do  about  the  time  of  this 
his  removal.  The  church  he  frequented  was  that  of  St.  Clement 
Danes 3,  which,  though  not  his  parish-church,  he  preferred  to 
that  of  the  Temple,  which  I  recommended  to  him,  as  being  free 
from  noise,  and,  in  other  respects,  more  commodious.  His  only 
reason  was,  that  in  the  former  he  was  best  known.  He  was  not 
constant  in  his  attendance  on  divine  worship4;  but,  from  an 
opinion  peculiar  to  himself,  and  which  he  once  intimated  to  me, 
seemed  to  wait  for  some  secret  impulse  as  a  motive  to  it.  .  .  . 

The  Sundays  which  he  passed  at  home  were,  nevertheless, 
spent  in  private  exercises  of  devotion  5,  and  sanctified  by  acts 
of  charity  of  a  singular  kind  :  on  that  day  he  accepted  of  no 


1  Ante ,  i.  37. 

2  Boswell,  dining  with  him  in  1781, 
says  that  ‘  he  produced  now  for  the 
first  time  some  handsome  silver 
salvers,  which,  he  told  me,  he  had 
bought  fourteen  years  ago  ;  so  it  was 
a  great  day.’  Life ,  iv.  92.  See  also 
ib.  ii.  215,  where  Boswell,  dining  with 
him  for  the  first  time  in  1773,  ‘found 
every  thing  in  very  good  order,’  and 
ib.  ii.  376,  where,  occupying  a  room 
in  his  house  in  1775,  he  ‘  found  every¬ 
thing  in  excellent  order.’ 

3  Ante,  i.  62,  n.  6  ;  Life,  ii.  214. 


■  4  Ante ,  ii.  94,  n.  1. 

5  ‘  He  was  accustomed  on  these 
days  to-read  the  Scriptures,  and  par¬ 
ticularly  the  Greek  Testament,  with 
the  paraphrase  of  Erasmus.  V ery  late 
in  his  life  he  formed  a  resolution  to 
read  the  Bible  through,  which  he 
confessed  to  me  he  had  never  done  ; 
at  the  same  time  lamenting,  that 
he  had  so  long  neglected  to  peruse, 
what  he  called  the  charter  of  his 
salvation.’  Note  by  Hawkins.  See 
ante ,  i.  59. 


invitation 


Hawkins's  Life  of  fohnson. 


117 


invitation  abroad,  but  gave  a  dinner  to  such  of  his  poor  friends 
as  might  else  have  gone  without  one T.  (Page  452.) 

To  impress  the  more  strongly  on  his  mind  the  value  of  time, 
and  the  use  it  behoved  every  wise  man  to  make  of  it,  he  in¬ 
dulged  himself  in  an  article  of  luxury,  which,  as  far  as  my 
observation  and  remembrance  will  serve  me,  he  never  enjoyed 
till  this  late  period  of  his  life  :  it  was  a  watch,  which  he  caused 
to  be  made  for  him,  in  the  year  1768,  by  those  eminent  artists 
Mudge  and  Dutton :  it  was  of  metal,  and  the  outer  case  covered 
with  tortoise-shell ;  he  paid  for  it  seventeen  guineas.  On  the 
dial-plate  thereof,  which  was  of  enamel,  he  caused  to  be  inscribed, 
in  the  original  Greek,  these  words  of  our  blessed  Saviour,  Nt>£ 
yap  epxtrai,  but  with  the  mistake  of  a  letter  /x  for  v :  the  meaning 
of  them  is,  ‘  For  the  night  cometh.’  This,  though  a  memento 
of  great  importance,  he,  about  three  years  after,  thought  pedantic  ; 
he,  therefore,  exchanged  the  dial-plate  for  one  in  which  the  in¬ 
scription  was  omitted1  2.  (Page  460.) 

Novelty,  and  variety  of  occupations,  were  objects  that  engaged 
his  attention,  and  from  these  he  never  failed  to  extract  informa¬ 
tion.  Though  born  and  bred  in  a  city3,  he  well  understood  both 
the  theory  and  practice  of  agriculture,  and  even  the  management 


1  Mrs.  Piozzi  says  that  ‘  Dr.  John¬ 
son,  commonly  spending  the  middle 
of  the  week  at  our  house,  kept  his 
numerous  family  in  Fleet-street  upon 
a  settled  allowance  ;  but  returned  to 
them  every  Saturday  to  give  them 
three  good  dinners  and  his  company, 
before  he  came  back  to  us  on  the 
Monday  night/  Ante ,  i.  205. 

2  Life,  ii.  57. 

In  R.  Polwhele’s  Traditions ,  p. 
353,  an  extract  is  given  from  a  letter 
dated  April  29,  1794,  in  .  which  the 

writer,  a  Christ  Church  man,  B - 

says  that  he  has  bought  Johnson’s 
watch  from  Francis  Barber,  ‘who  is 
now  settled  at  Lichfield,  and  I  am 
afraid  in  great  want.’  The  watch,  he 
says,  was  made  by  Mudge,  the  brother 
of  Dr.  Mudge,  whose  sermons  John¬ 


son  spoke  well  of  [Life,  iv.  77].  The 
watch-maker  in  gratitude  exerted 
himself  in  making  it.  For  Thomas 
Mudge,  the  watch-maker,  see  Letters , 
i.  93,  n.  2. 

Canon  Pailye  of  Lichfield  told  Mr. 
Croker  that  he  had  purchased  the 
watch  from  Barber.  Croker’s  Bos¬ 
well,  x.  106. 

For  Porson’s  humorous  letter  about 
the  watch,  see  ante,  ii.  81. 

The  same  Greek  inscription  Scott 
put  on  his  dial  in  hisgarden  at  Abbots¬ 
ford.  Ante,  i.  123,  n.  4. 

3  Lichfield  was  so  small  a  city  that 
a  few  minutes’  walk  would  have  taken 
him  into  the  fields.  Even  so  late  as 
1781  it  did  not  contain  4,000  in¬ 
habitants.  Harwood’s  History  of 
Lichfield,  p.  380. 


of 


n8 


Extracts  from 


of  a  farm  :  he  could  describe,  with  great  accuracy,  the  process  of 
malting ;  and,  had  necessity  driven  him  to  it,  could  have  thatched 
a  dwelling x.  Of  field  recreations,  such  as  hunting,  setting,  and 
shooting,  he  would  discourse  like  a  sportsman,  though  his  personal 
defects  rendered  him,  in  a  great  measure,  incapable  of  deriving 
pleasure  from  any  such  exercises. 

But  he  had  taken  a  very  comprehensive  view  of  human  life 
and  manners,  and,  that  he  was  well  acquainted  with  the  views 
and  pursuits  of  all  classes  and  characters  of  men,  his  writings 
abundantly  shew.  This  kind  of  knowledge  he  was  ever  desirous 
of  increasing,  even  as  he  advanced  in  years :  to  gratify  it,  he  was 
accessible  to  all  comers,  and  yielded  to  the  invitations  of  such  of 
his  friends  as  had  residences  in  the  country,  to  vary  his  course 
of  living,  and  pass  the  pleasanter  months  of  the  year  in  the 
shades  of  obscurity. 

In  these  visits,  where  there  were  children  in  the  family,  he 
took  great  delight  in  examining  them  as  to  their  progress  in 
learning,  or,  to  make  use  of  a  term  almost  obsolete,  of  apposing 
them 1  2.  To  this  purpose,  I  once  heard  him  say,  that  in  a  visit 
to  Mrs.  Percy,  who  had  the  care  of  one  of  the  young  princes,  at 
the  queen’s  house  3,  the  prince  of  Wales  4,  being  then  a  child, 
came  into  the  room,  and  began  to  play  about;  when  Johnson, 
with  his  usual  curiosity,  took  an  opportunity  of  asking  him  what 
books  he  was  reading,  and,  in  particular,  enquired  as  to  his 
knowledge  of  the  Scriptures :  the  prince,  in  his  answers,  gave 
him  great  satisfaction ;  and,  as  to  the  last,  said,  that  part  of  his 
daily  exercises  was  to  read  Ostervald  s.  In  many  families  into 


1  In  the  Isle  of  Skye  he  described 
the  durability  of  a  roof  thatched  with 
Lincolnshire  reeds.  Life ,  v.  263.  In 
his  youth  he  had  worked  at  book¬ 
binding.  Ante ,  i.  361.  For  his 
varied  knowledge  see  Life ,  v.  215, 
246,  263.  Much  of  it  he  had,  no 
doubt,  acquired  from  the  books 
which  he  read  for  his  Dictionary. 
For  his  ‘  talking  ostentatiously  ’  about 
granulating  gunpowder,  see  ib .  v.  124. 

2  ‘  This  word  is  not  now  in  use, 

except  that  in  some  schools  to 


put  grammatical  questions  to  a 
boy  is  called  to  pose  him ;  and  we 
now  use  pose  ior  puzzle  i  Johnson’s 
Dictionary. 

It  is  preserved  in  Apposition  Day, 
the  term  still  applied  to  Speech  Day 
at  St.  Paul’s  School. 

3  Buckingham  House,  on  the  same 
site  as  the  present  Buckingham 
Palace.  Life ,  ii.  33  ;  Letters ,  i.  414, 
n.  2.  See  also  ante ,  ii.  64. 

4  Afterwards  George  IV. 

5  Burnet  describes  Ostervald  as 

which 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


IT9 

which  he  went,  the  fathers  were  often  desirous  of  producing  their 
sons  to  him  for  his  opinion  of  their  parts,  and  of  the  proficiency 
they  had  made  at  school,  which,  in  frequent  instances,  came  out 
to  be  but  small.  He  once  told  me,  that  being  at  the  house  of 
a  friend,  whose  son  in  his  school-vacation  was  come  home,  the 
father  spoke  of  this  child  as  a  lad  of  pregnant  parts,  and  said, 
that  he  was  well  versed  in  the  classics,  and  acquainted  with 
history,  in  the  study  whereof  he  took  great  delight.  Having 
this  information,  Johnson,  as  a  test  of  the  young  scholar’s  attain¬ 
ments,  put  this  question  to  him: - ‘At  what  time  did  the 

heathen  oracles  cease  ? 3 - The  boy,  not  in  the  least  daunted, 

answered  : - ‘  At  the  dissolution  of  religious  houses  V  (Page 

469.) 


About  this  time  [1775-6],  Dr.  Johnson  changed  his  dwelling 
in  Johnson’s  court,  for  a  somewhat  larger  in  Bolt  court2,  Fleet 
street,  where  he  commenced  an  intimacy  with  the  landlord  of  it, 
a  very  worthy  and  sensible  man,  some  time  since  deceased, 
Mr.  Edmund  Allen  the  printer  3.  Behind  it  was  a  garden,  which 
he  took  delight  in  watering ;  a  room  on  the  ground-floor  was 
assigned  to  Mrs.  Williams,  and  the  whole  of  the  two  pair  of  stairs 
floor  was  made  a  repository  for  his  books ;  one  of  the  rooms 


thereon  being  his  study.  Here, 

‘the  most  eminent  ecclesiastic’  of  the 
State  of  Neufchatel,  and  as  ‘one  of 
the  best  and  most  judicious  divines 
of  the  age :  he  was  bringing  that 
Church  to  a  near  agreement  with  our 
forms  of  worship.’  Burnet’s  History 
of  His  Own  Time ,  ed.  1818,  iv. 
165. 

Many  of  his  works  were  translated 
into  English. 

The  Prince  of  Wales  was  but  eight 
years  old,  when  ‘  orders  were  given 
from  the  Lord  Chamberlain’s  Office 
for  a  Chaplain  in  waiting  to  attend 
at  the  Queen’s  Palace  to  read  prayers, 
for  the  first  time,  to  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  in  the  absence  of  their 
Majesties,  under  the  direction  of  the 


in  the  intervals  of  his  residence 

Lord  Bishop  of  Chester.’  Gentle¬ 
man's  Magazine ,  1771,  p.  235. 

Horace  Walpole,  writing  of  the 
Prince  at  the  age  of  nineteen,  says 
( Journal  of  the  Reign  of  George  Illy 
ii.  503) : — ‘Nothing  was  coarser  than 
his  conversation  and  phrases ;  and 
it  made  men  smile  to  find  that  in  the 
palace  of  piety  and  pride  his  Royal 
Highness  had  learnt  nothing  but  the 
dialect  of  footmen  and  grooms.’ 

1  Mrs.  Piozzi  tells  a  similar  story. 
Ante ,  i.  303. 

2  Life ,  ii.  427. 

3  On  his  death  he  said :  ‘  I  have 
lost  one  of  my  best  and  tenderest 
friends.’  Ib.  iv.  354. 


at 


120 


Extracts  from 


at  Streatham  1J  he  received  the  visits  of  his  friends,  and,  to  the 
most  intimate  of  them,  sometimes  gave  not  inelegant  dinners. 

Being  at  ease  in  his  circumstances,  and  free  from  that  solicitude 
which  had  embittered  the  former  part  of  his  life,  he  sunk  into 
indolence,  till  his  faculties  seemed  to  be  impaired  :  deafness  grew 
upon  him  ;  long  intervals  of  mental  absence  interrupted  his  con¬ 
versation,  and  it  was  difficult  to  engage  his  attention  to  any 
subject 2.  His  friends,  from  these  symptoms,  concluded,  that  his 
lamp  was  emitting  its  last  rays,  but  the  lapse  of  a  short  period 
gave  them  ample  proofs  to  the  contrary  3.  (Page  531.) 

That  this  celebrated  friendship  [between  Dr.  Johnson  and 
Mr.  Thrale]  subsisted  so  long  as  it  did,  was  a  subject  of  wonder 
to  most  of  Johnson’s  intimates,  for  such  were  his  habits  of  living, 
that  he  was  by  no  means  a  desirable  inmate.  His  unmanly 
thirst  for  tea  made  him  very  troublesome.  At  Streatham,  he 
would  suffer  the  mistress  of  the  house  to  sit  up  and  make  it  for 
him,  till  two  or  three  hours  after  midnight 4.  When  retired  to 
rest,  he  indulged  himself  in  the  dangerous  practice  of  reading  in 
bed  5.  It  was  a  very  hard  matter  to  get  him  decently  dressed  by 
dinner-time,  even  when  select  companies  were  invited  ;  and  no 
one  could  be  sure,  that  in  his  table-conversation  with  strangers, 
he  would  not,  by  contradiction,  or  the  general  asperity  of  his 
behaviour,  offend  them 6. 

These  irregularities  were  not  only  borne  with  by  Mr.  Thrale, 
but  he  seemed  to  think  them  amply  atoned  for  by  the  honour  he 
derived  from  such  a  guest  as  no  table  in  the  three  kingdoms 
could  produce  ;  but,  he  dying,  it  was  not  likely  that  the  same 
sentiments  and  opinions  should  descend  to  those  of  his  family 
who  were  left  behind.  (Page  561.) 


1  Life ,  i.  493. 

1  My  friend  bade  me  welcome,  but 
struck  me  quite  dumb, 

With  tidings  that  Johnson  and  Burke 
would  not  come  ; 

“For  I  knew  it,”  he  cried,  “both 
eternally  fail, 

The  one  with  his  speeches,  and 
t’other  with  Thrale.”  ’ 
Goldsmith’s  Haunch  of  Venison. 


2  Life ,  iii.  98. 

3  By  the  Lives  of  the  Poets. 

4  This  is  a  gross  exaggeration  of 
what  Mrs.  Piozzi  wrote.  Ante ,  i.  329. 

Hawkins  apparently  never  visited 
the  Th rales  (see  Miss  Hawkins’s 
Memoirs,  i.  65  n.),  so  that  his  account 
is  second-hand. 

5  Ante,  i.  307. 

6  Ante,  i.  242. 


The 


Hawkinses  Life  of  Johnson . 


121 


The  visits  of  idle,  and  some  of  them  very  worthless  persons, 
were  never  unwelcome  to  Johnson  ;  and  though  they  interrupted 
him  in  his  studies  and  meditations,  yet,  as  they  gave  him  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  discourse,  and  furnished  him  with  intelligence,  he  strove 
rather  to  protract  than  shorten  or  discountenance  them ;  and, 
when  abroad,  such  was  the  laxity  of  his  mind,  that  he  consented 
to  the  doing  of  many  things,  otherwise  indifferent,  for  the  avowed 
reason  that  they  would  drive  on  time  \  (Page  565.) 

In  his  return  to  London,  he  stopped  at  Lichfield,  and  from 
thence  wrote  to  me  several  letters1  2,  that  served  but  to  prepare 
me  for  meeting  him  in  a  worse  state  of  health  than  I  had  ever 
seen  him  in.  The  concluding  paragraph  of  the  last  of  them  is 
as  follows :  ‘  I  am  relapsing  into  the  dropsy  very  fast,  and  shall 
make  such  haste  to  town  that  it  will  be  useless  to  write  to  me  ; 
but  when  I  come,  let  me  have  the  benefit  of  your  advice,  and  the 
consolation  of  your  company.’  [Dated  Nov.  7,  1784.]  After 
about  a  fortnight’s  stay  there,  he  took  his  leave  of  that  city,  and 
of  Mrs.  Porter,  whom  he  never  afterwards  saw,  and  arrived  in 
town  on  the  sixteenth  day  of  November3. 

After  the  declaration  he  had  made  of  his  intention  to  provide 
for  his  servant  Frank,  and  before  his  going  into  the  country, 
I  had  frequently  pressed  him  to  make  a  will,  and  had  gone  so 
far  as  to  make  a  draft  of  one,  with  blanks  for  the  names  of  the 
executors  and  residuary  legatee,  and  directing  in  what  manner  it 
was  to  be  executed  and  attested  ;  but  he  was  exceedingly  averse 
to  this  business ;  and,  while  he  was  in  Derbyshire,  I  repeated  my 
solicitations,  for  this  purpose,  by  letters.  When  he  arrived  in 
town  he  had  done  nothing  in  it 4,  and,  to  what  I  formerly  said, 


1  ‘When  I,  in  a  low-spirited  fit, 
was  talking  to  him  with  indifference 
of  the  pursuits  which  generally  en¬ 
gage  us  in  a  course  of  action,  and  in¬ 
quiring  a  reason  for  taking  so  much 
trouble ;  “  Sir,”  said  he,  in  an  ani¬ 
mated  tone,  “  it  is  driving  on  the 
system  of  life.”  5  Life,  iv.  1 12. 

2  None  of  these  have  been  pub¬ 
lished. 

3  Life ,  iv.  377. 


4  Five  years  earlier  Johnson  had 
been  urging  Thrale  to  make  his  will. 
He  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘  Some 
days  before  our  last  separation  Mr. 
Thrale  and  I  had  one  evening  an 
earnest  discourse  about  the  business 
with  Mr.  Scrase  [a  solicitor].  .  .  .  Do 
not  let  those  fears  prevail  which  you 
know  to  be  unreasonable ;  a  will 
brings  the  end  of  life  no  nearer.’ 
Letters ,  ii.  1 1 5. 


I  now 


122 


Extracts  from 


I  now  added,  that  he  had  never  mentioned  to  me  the  disposal  of 
the  residue  of  his  estate,  which,  after  the  purchase  of  an  annuity 
for  Frank,  I  found  would  be  something  considerable,  and  that  he 
would  do  well  to  bequeath  it  to  his  relations.  His  answer  was, 

‘  I  care  not  what  becomes  of  the  residue.’ - A  few  days  after, 

it  appeared  that  he  had  executed  the  draft,  the  blanks  remaining, 
with  all  the  solemnities  of  a  real  will.  I  could  get  him  no  farther, 
and  thus,  for  some  time,  the  matter  rested. 

He  had  scarce  arrived  in  town,  before  it  was  found  to  be  too 
true,  that  he  was  relapsing  into  a  dropsy ;  and  farther,  that  he 
was  at  times  grievously  afflicted  with  an  asthma.  Under  an 
apprehension  that  his  end  was  approaching,  he  enquired  of 
Dr.  Brocklesby,  with  great  earnestness  indeed,  how  long  he  might 
probably  live,  but  could  obtain  no  other  than  unsatisfactory 
answers 1  :  and,  at  the  same  time,  if  I  remember  right,  under 
a  seeming  great  pressure  of  mind,  he  thus  addressed  him,  in  the 
words  of  Shakespeare  : 

‘  Canst  thou  not  minister  to  a  mind  diseas’d ; 

Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow, 

Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain, 

And  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote, 

Cleanse  the  full  bosom  of  that  perilous  stuff, 

Which  weighs  upon  the  heart  ?  ’ - 

Macbeth  [Act  v.  sc.  3]. 

To  which  the  doctor,  who  was  nearly  as  well  read  in  the  above 
author  as  himself,  readily  replied, 

- ‘  Therein  the  patient 

Must  minister  to  himself.’ 

Upon  which  Johnson  exclaimed — ‘Well  applied: — that’s  more 
than  poetically  true  V 

He  had,  from  the  month  of  July  in  this  year,  marked  the 
progress  of  his  diseases,  in  a  journal  which  he  intitled  £  JEg ri 
Ephemeris,’  noting  therein  his  many  sleepless  nights  by  the 
words,  Nox  insomnis.  This  he  often  contemplated,  and,  finding 
very  little  ground  for  hope  that  he  had  much  longer  to  live,  he 
set  himself  to  prepare  for  his  dissolution,  and  betook  himself  to 

1  Life,  iv.  415.  2  Life ,  iv.  400. 

private 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


123 


private  prayer  and  the  reading  of  Erasmus  on  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  T,  Dr.  Clarke’s  sermons1  2,  and  such  other  books  as  had 
a  tendency  to  calm  and  comfort  him. 

In  this  state  of  his  body  and  mind,  he  seemed  to  be  very 
anxious  in  the  discharge  of  two  offices  that  he  had  hitherto 
neglected  to  perform  :  one  was,  the  communicating  to  the  world 
the  names  of  the  persons  concerned  in  the  compilation  of  the 
Universal  History ;  the  other  was,  the  rescuing  from  oblivion 
the  memory  of  his  father  and  mother,  and  also,  of  his  brother : 
the  former  of  these  he  discharged,  by  delivering  to  Mr.  Nichols 
the  printer,  in  my  presence,  a  paper  containing  the  information 
above-mentioned,  and  directions  to  deposit  it  in  the  British 
Museum  3.  The  other,  by  composing  a  memorial  of  his  deceased 
parents  and  his  brother,  intended  for  their  tomb-stone,  which, 
whether  it  was  ever  inscribed  thereon  or  not,  is  extant  in  the 
Gentleman’s  Magazine  for  January  1785  4. 

He  would  also  have  written,  in  Latin  verse,  an  epitaph  for 
Mr.  Garrick,  but  found  himself  unequal  to  the  task  of  original 
poetic  composition  in  that  language. 

Nevertheless,  he  succeeded  in  an  attempt  to  render  into  Latin 
metre,  from  the  Greek  Anthologia,  sundry  of  the  epigrams  therein 
contained,  that  had  been  omitted  by  other  translators,  alledging 
as  a  reason,  which  he  had  found  in  Fabricius 5,  that  Henry 
Stephens,  Buchanan,  Grotius,  and  others,  had  paid  a  like  tribute 
to  literature.  The  performance  of  this  task  was  the  employ¬ 
ment  of  his  sleepless  nights,  and,  as  he  informed  me,  it  afforded 
him  great  relief6. 


1  ‘  The  Paraphrase  and  Notes  of 
Erasmus,  in  my  judgment,  was  the 
most  important  Book  even  of  his  day. 
We  must  remember  that  it  was  almost 
legally  adopted  by  the  Church  of 
England.5  Milman’s  Latin  Christi¬ 
anity,  ed.  1855,  vi.  624. 

‘  In  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  it  was 
commanded  that  in  every  church 
there  should  be  a  copy  of  this  book 
on  a  desk  for  the  use  of  the  congre¬ 
gation.’  Jortin’s  Erasmus ,  p.  155. 

2  Life,  iv.  416  ;  ante ,  i.  38. 


3  Life,  iv.  382  ;  Letters ,  ii.  431. 

4  It  seems  likely  that  the  stone  was 
never  set  up.  Life ,  iv.  393,  n.  3. 

5  In  the  Sale  Catalogue  of  Johnson’s 
Library,  Lot  78  is  Fabricii  bibliotheca 
Graeca  in  6  vols.,  and  Lot  300  the 
same  work  in  8  vols. 

6  On  April  19,  1784,  he  wrote  to 
Mrs.  Thrale: — ‘When  I  lay  sleepless, 
I  used  to  drive  the  night  along  by 
turning  Greek  epigrams  into  Latin.5 
Letters ,  ii.  391.  See  also  Life,  iv. 

384. 


His 


124 


Extracts  from 


His  complaints  still  increasing,  I  continued  pressing  him  to 
make  a  will,  but  he  still  procrastinated  that  business.  On  the 
twenty-seventh  of  November,  in  the  morning,  I  went  to  his 
house,  with  a  purpose  still  farther  to  urge  him  not  to  give  occa¬ 
sion,  by  dying  intestate,  for  litigation  among  his  relations ;  but 
finding  that  he  was  gone  to  pass  the  day  with  the  Reverend 
Mr.  Strahan,  at  Islington,  I  followed  him  thither,  and  found  there 
our  old  friend  Mr.  Ryland,  and  Mr.  Hoole *.  Upon  my  sitting 
down,  he  said,  that  the  prospect  of  the  change  he  was  about  to 
undergo,  and  the  thought  of  meeting  his  Saviour,  troubled  him, 
but  that  he  had  hope  that  he  would  not  reject  him.  I  then 
began  to  discourse  with  him  about  his  will,  and  the  provision  for 
Frank,  till  he  grew  angry 1  2.  He  told  me,  that  he  had  signed  and 
sealed  the  paper  I  left  him  but  that,  said  I,  had  blanks  in  it, 
which,  as  it  seems,  you  have  not  filled  up  with  the  names  of  the 

executors. - ‘  You  should  have  filled  them  up  yourself/  answered 

he. - 1  replied,  that  such  an  act  would  have  looked  as  if  I  meant 

to  prevent  his  choice  of  a  fitter  person. - ‘  Sir/  said  he,  ‘these 

minor  virtues  are  not  to  be  exercised  in  matters  of  such  import¬ 
ance  as  this.’ - At  length,  he  said,  that  on  his  return  home, 

he  would  send  for  a  clerk,  and  dictate  a  will  to  him. - You 

will  then,  said  I,  be  inops  consilii ;  rather  do  it  now.  With 
Mr.  Strahan’s  permission,  I  will  be  his  guest  at  dinner ;  and,  if 
Mr.  Hoole  will  please  to  hold  the  pen,  I  will,  in  a  few  words, 

make  such  a  disposition  of  your  estate  as  you  shall  direct. - To 

this  he  assented  ;  but  such  a  paroxysm  of  the  asthma  seized 
him,  as  prevented  our  going  on.  As  the  fire  burned  up,  he  found 
himself  relieved,  and  grew  chearful.  ‘  The  fit/  said  he,  ‘  was  very 
sharp ;  but  I  am  now  easy.’  After  I  had  dictated  a  few  lines, 
I  told  him,  that  he  being  a  man  of  eminence  for  learning  and 
parts,  it  would  afford  an  illustrious  example,  and  well  become 
him,  to  make  such  an  explicit  declaration  of  his  belief,  as  might 
obviate  all  suspicions  that  he  was  any  other  than  a  Christian 3. 

1  Post  in  Mr.  Hoole’s  Anecdotes.  Johnson  (pp.  599,  605)  as  ‘  the  effects 

2  He  grew  angry,  no  doubt,  with  of  ill-directed  benevolence/  and  as 
Hawkins  for  protesting  against  the  ‘  ostentatious  bounty.’ 

annuity  for  Frank,  which  that  ‘  brutal  3  ‘ A  few  years  ago  it  was  the  uni¬ 
fellow  ’  described  in  his  Life  of  form  practice  to  begin  wills  with  the 

He 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


I25 


He  thanked  me  for  the  hint,  and,  calling  for  paper,  wrote  on 
a  slip,  that  I  had  in  my  hand  and  gave  him,  the  following  words : 
‘  I  humbly  commit  to  the  infinite  and  eternal  goodness  of 
Almighty  God,  my  soul  polluted  with  many  sins  ;  but,  as  I  hope, 
purified  by  repentance,  and  redeemed,  as  I  trust,  by  the  death  of 
Jesus  Christ;’  and,  returning  it  to  me,  said,  ‘This  I  commit  to 
your  custody.’ 

Upon  my  calling  on  him  for  directions  to  proceed,  he  told 
me,  that  his  father,  in  the  course  of  his  trade  as  a  bookseller,  had 
become  bankrupt,  and  that  Mr.  William  Innys  had  assisted  him 
with  money  or  credit  to  continue  his  business — ‘  This,’  said 
he,  £  I  consider  as  an  obligation  on  me  to  be  grateful  to  his 
descendants,  and  I  therefore  mean  to  give  200/.  to  his  repre¬ 
sentative1.’ — He  then  meditated  a  devise  of  his  house  at  Lichfield 
to  the  corporation  of  that  city  for  a  charitable  use  ;  but,  it  being 
freehold,  he  said — ‘  I  cannot  live  a  twelve-month,  and  the  last 
statute  of  mortmain  stands  in  the  way:  I  must,  therefore,  think 
of  some  other  disposition  of  it2.5 — His  next  consideration  was 
a  provision  for  Frank,  concerning  the  amount  whereof  I  found 
he  had  been  consulting  Dr.  Brocklesby,  to  whom  he  had  put 


words,  “  In  the  name  of  God,  Amen”  ; 
and  frequently  to  insert  therein  a 
declaration  of  the  testator’s  hope  of 
pardon  in  the  merits  of  his  Saviour  ; 
but,  in  these  more  refined  times,  such 
forms  are  deemed  superfluous.’ 
Hawkins. 

Mr.  Pepys  told  Hannah  More  that 
this  request  was  made  to  Johnson 
‘  to  counteract  the  poison  of  Hume’s 
impious  declaration  of  his  opinions 
in  his  last  moments.’  H.  More's 
Memoirs,  i.  393.  See  Life ,  iii.  153, 
and  Letters  of  Hume  to  Stratum , 
Preface,  p.  38. 

‘The  late  Mr.  Allen  of  Magdalen 
Hall  \_Life,  i.  336],  who  was  a  privi¬ 
leged  person,  and  could  say  what  he 
pleased  to  Johnson,  addressed  him 
once  very  freely  upon  the  subject 
[of  chastising  the  vanity  of  scepti¬ 
cism]  : — “Johnson,  if  you  really  are 


a  Christian,  as  I  suppose  you  to  be, 
do  write  something  to  make  us  sure 
of  it.”  5  Kenyon  MSS.  Hist.  MSS. 
Comm.,  14th  Report,  iv.  540. 

1  Life ,  iv.  402,  n.  2,  440. 

Roger  North,  after  describing  the 
degradation  among  the  booksellers 
soon  after  the  Restoration,  speaking 
of  second-hand  books  continues : — 
‘  One  that  would  go  higher  must  take 
his  fortune  at  blank  walls  and  corners 
of  streets,  or  repair  to  the  sign  of 
Bateman,  Innys  and  one  or  two  more, 
where  are  best  choice  and  best  penny¬ 
worths.’  Lives  of  the  Norths ,  ed. 
1826,  iii.  294. 

2  In  his  last  will  he  directed  it  to 
be  sold,  the  money  arising  therefrom 
to  be  distributed  among  some  distant 
relations.  Life ,  iv.  402,  n.  2.  It  sold 
for  ^235.  Hawkins ,  p.  599  ;  Letters , 
i.  19,  n.  1. 


this 


126 


Extracts  from 


this  question — ‘  What  would  be  a  proper  annuity  to  bequeath  to 
a  favourite  servant?5 — The  doctor  answered,  that  the  circum¬ 
stances  of  the  master  were  the  truest  measure,  and  that,  in  the 
case  of  a  nobleman,  50/.  a  year  was  deemed  an  adequate  reward 
for  many  years’  faithful  service. — ‘Then  shall  I,*  said  Johnson, 
‘  be  nobilissimus  ;  for,  I  mean  to  leave  Frank  70/.  a  year,  and 
I  desire  you  to  tell  him  so  V — And  now,  at  the  making  of  the 
will,  a  devise,  equivalent  to  such  a  provision,  was  therein  in¬ 
serted.  The  residue  of  his  estate  and  effects,  which  took  in, 
though  he  intended  it  not,  the  house  at  Lichfield,  he  bequeathed 
to  his  executors,  in  trust  for  a  religious  association,  which  it  is 
needless  to  describe1  2. 

Having  executed  the  will  with  the  necessary  formalities,  he 
would  have  come  home,  but  being  pressed  by  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Strahan  to  stay,  he  consented,  and  we  all  dined  together. 
Towards  the  evening,  he  grew  chearful,  and  I  having  promised 
to  take  him  in  my  coach,  Mr.  Strahan  and  Mr.  Ryland  would 
accompany  him  to  Bolt-court.  In  the  way  thither  he  appeared 
much  at  ease,  and  told  stories.  At  eight  I  sat  him  down,  and 
Mr.  Strahan  and  Mr.  Ryland  betook  themselves  to  their  re¬ 
spective  homes. 

Sunday  28th.  I  saw  him  about  noon ;  he  was  dozing ;  but 
waking,  he  found  himself  in  a  circle  of  his  friends.  Upon  open¬ 
ing  his  eyes,  he  said,  that  the  prospect  of  his  dissolution  was 
very  terrible  to  him,  and  addressed  himself  to  us  all,  in  nearly 
these  words  :  ‘You  see  the  state  in  which  I  am  ;  conflicting  with 
bodily  pain  and  mental  distraction :  while  you  are  in  health  and 
strength,  labour  to  do  good,  and  avoid  evil,  if  ever  you  hope  to 

escape  the  distress  that  now  oppresses  me.5 - A  little  while 

after, — ‘  I  had,  very  early  in  my  life,  the  seeds  of  goodness  in 


1  Life ,  iv.  401. 

2  Boswell  says  that  ‘  he  had  thoughts 
of  leaving  to  Pembroke  College  his 
house ;  but  his  friends  who  were 
about  him  very  properly  dissuaded 
him  from  it,  and  he  bequeathed  it  to 
some  poor  relations.’  Ib.  i.  75. 

In  a  note  on  this  passage  I  say 


that  ‘the  statute  of  Mortmain,  no 
doubt,  would  have  hindered  the  be¬ 
quest  to  the  College.’  This  was  a 
mistake,  as  the  two  Universities  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  the  Col¬ 
leges  within  them,  were  exempted 
from  its  operation.  Blackstone’s 
Cotnmentaries ,  ed.  1775,  ii.  274. 


me 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


127 


me :  I  had  a  love  of  virtue,  and  a  reverence  for  religion  1  ;  and 
these,  I  trust,  have  brought  forth  in  me  fruits  meet  for  repent¬ 
ance  ;  and,  if  I  have  repented  as  I  ought,  I  am  forgiven.  I  have, 
at  times,  entertained  a  loathing  of  sin  and  of  myself,  particularly 
at  the  beginning  of  this  year,  when  I  had  the  prospect  of  death 
before  me2;  and  this  has  not  abated  when  my  fears  of  death 
have  been  less ;  and,  at  these  times,  I  have  had  such  rays  of 
hope  shot  into  my  soul,  as  have  almost  persuaded  me,  that  I  am 
in  a  state  of  reconciliation  with  God  V 

29th.  Mr.  Langton,  who  had  spent  the  evening  with  him, 
reported,  that  his  hopes  were  increased,  and  that  he  was  much 
cheared  upon  being  reminded  of  the  general  tendency  of  his 
writings,  and  of  his  example 4. 

30th.  I  saw  him  in  the  evening,  and  found  him  chearful. 
Was  informed,  that  he  had,  for  his  dinner,  eaten  heartily  of 
a  French  duck  pie  and  a  pheasant. 

Dec.  1.  He  was  busied  in  destroying  papers5. — Gave  to 
Mr.  Langton  and  another  person,  to  fair  copy,  some  translations 
of  the  Greek  epigrams,  which  he  had  made  in  the  preceding 
nights,  and  transcribed  the  next  morning,  and  they  began  to 
work  on  them. 

3d.  Finding  his  legs  continue  to  swell,  he  signified  to  his 
physicians  a  strong  desire  to  have  them  scarified,  but  they, 
unwilling  to  put  him  to  pain,  and  fearing  a  mortification,  de¬ 
clined  advising  it.  He  afterwards  consulted  his  surgeon,  and  he 
performed  the  operation  on  one  leg. 

4th.  I  visited  him  :  the  scarification,  made  yesterday  in  his 
leg,  appeared  to  have  had  little  effect. — He  said  to  me,  that  he 


x  Life ,  i.  68. 

2  On  Feb.  6  he  had  written  to  Dr. 
Heberden : — ‘  My  distemper  prevails, 
and  my  hopes  sink,  and  dejection 
oppresses  me.’  Letters ,  ii.  376. 

3  On  Oct.  6  he  wrote  : — ‘  My  mind 
is  calmer  than  in  the  beginning  of 
the  year,  and  I  comfort  myself  with 
hopes  of  every  kind,  neither  despair¬ 
ing  of  ease  in  this  world,  nor  of 
happiness  in  another.’  Letters ,  ii. 
423- 


4  Mrs.  Carter,  in  one  of  her  latest 
conversations  with  Dr.  Johnson, 
spoke  of  ‘  his  constant  attention  to 
religious  duties  and  the  soundness 
of  his  moral  principles.  He  took 
her  by  the  hand,  and  said  with 
much  eagerness,  “  You  know  this 
to  be  true ;  testify  it  to  the  world 
when  I  am  gone.”  ’  Memoirs  of 
Mrs.  Carter ,  i.  41.  See  also  ftost, 
P-  203. 

5  Life ,  iv.  403. 


was 


128 


Extracts  from 


was  easier  in  his  mind,  and  as  fit  to  die  at  that  instant,  as  he 
could  be  a  year  hence. — He  requested  me  to  receive  the  sacra¬ 
ment  with  him  on  Sunday,  the  next  day.  Complained  of  great 
weakness,  and  of  phantoms  that  haunted  his  imagination. 

5th.  Being  Sunday,  I  communicated  with  him  and  Mr.  Lang- 
ton,  and  othei  of  his  friends,  as  many  as  nearly  filled  the  room. 
Mr.  Strahan,  who  was  constant  in  his  attendance  on  him 
throughout  his  illness,  performed  the  office x.  Previous  to 
reading  the  exhortation,  Johnson  knelt,  and  with  a  degree  of 
fervour  that  I  had  never  been  witness  to  before,  uttered  the 
following  most  eloquent  and  energetic  prayer1  2 :  .  .  . 

Upon  rising  from  his  knees,  after  the  office  was  concluded,  he 
said,  that  he  dreaded  to  meet  God  in  a  state  of  idiocy,  or  with 
opium  in  his  head 3 4 ;  and,  that  having  now  communicated  with 
the  effects  of  a  dose  upon  him,  he  doubted  if  his  exertions  were 
the  genuine  operations  of  his  mind,  and  repeated  from  bishop 
Taylor  this  sentiment,  ‘  That  little,  that  has  been  omitted  in 
health,  can  be  done  to  any  purpose  in  sickness  V 

He  very  much  admired,  and  often  in  the  course  of  his  illness 
recited,  from  the  conclusion  of  old  Isaac  Walton’s  life  of  bishop 
Sanderson,  the  following  pathetic  request : 

‘  Thus  this  pattern  of  meekness  and  primitive  innocence  changed  this  for 
a  better  life  : — ’tis  now  too  late  to  wish,  that  mine  may  be  like  his  ;  for  I  am 
in  the  eighty-fifth  year  of  my  age,  and  God  knows  it  hath  not ;  but,  I  most 
humbly  beseech  Almighty  God,  that  my  death  may  ;  and  I  do  as  earnestly 
beg,  that,  if  any  reader  shall  receive  any  satisfaction  from  this  very  plain, 
and,  as  true  relation,  he  will  be  so  charitable  as  to  say,  Amen  V 

While  he  was  dressing  and  preparing  for  this  solemnity,  an 


1  Life ,  iv.  416. 

2  For  the  prayer,  see  ante,  i.  121. 

3  ‘  I  will  take  no  more  physic,  not 
even  my  opiates  ;  for  I  have  prayed 
that  I  may  render  up  my  soul  to  God 
unclouded.’  Life ,  iv.  415.  For  the 
effect  of  opium  on  him  see  Letters , 
ii-  437- 

4  Nevertheless  in  Holy  Dying 
Jeremy  Taylor  has  a  whole  section 
(ch.  iii.  sect.  6)  on  ‘the  advantages 
of  sickness.’ 


5  ‘  Thus  this  pattern  of  meek¬ 
ness  and  primitive  innocence  chang’d 
this  for  a  better  life.  ’Tis  now  too 
late  to  wish  that  my  life  may  be 
like  his ;  for  I  am  in  the  eighty- 
fifth  year  of  my  Age  ;  but  I  humbly 
beseech  Almighty  God  that  my 
death  may  ;  and  do  as  earnestly  beg 
of  every  Reader  to  say  Amen.’  The 
Life  of  Bishop  Sanderson ,  first  ed., 
16  78. 


accident 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


129 


accident  happened  which  went  very  near  to  disarrange1  his  mind. 
He  had  mislaid,  and  was  very  anxious  to  find  a  paper  that  con¬ 
tained  private  instructions  to  his  executors ;  and  myself, 
Mr.  Strahan,  Mr.  Langton,  Mr.  Hoole,  Frank,  and  I  believe 
some  others  that  were  about  him,  went  into  his  bed-chamber 
to  seek  it.  In  our  search.  I  laid  my  hands  on  a  parchment- 
covered  book,  into  which  I  imagined  it  might  have  been  slipped. 
Upon  opening  the  book,  I  found  it  to  be  meditations  and 
reflections,  in  Johnson’s  own  hand-writing;  and  having  been 
told  a  day  or  two  before  by  Frank,  that  a  person  formerly 
intimately  connected  with  his  master,  a  joint  proprietor  of 
a  newspaper,  well  known  among  the  booksellers,  and  of  whom 
Mrs.  Williams  once  told  me  she  had  often  cautioned  him  to 
beware  ;  I  say,  having  been  told  that  this  person  had  lately 
been  very  importunate  to  get  access  to  him,  indeed  to  such 
a  degree  as  that,  when  he  was  told  that  the  doctor  was  not  to  be 
seen,  he  would  push  his  way  up  stairs ;  and  having  stronger 
reasons  than  I  need  here  mention,  to  suspect  that  this  man 
might  find  and  make  an  ill  use  of  the  book,  I  put  it,  and  a  less 
of  the  same  kind,  into  my  pocket ;  at  the  same  time  telling 
those  around  me,  and  particularly  Mr.  Langton  and  Mr.  Strahan, 
that  I  had  got  both,  with  my  reasons  for  thus  securing  them. 
After  the  ceremony  was  over,  Johnson  took  me  aside,  and  told 
me  that  I  had  a  book  of  his  in  my  pocket  ;  I  answered  that 
I  had  two,  and  that  to  prevent  their  falling  into  the  hands  of 
a  person  who  had  attempted  to  force  his  way  into  the  house, 
I  had  done  as  I  conceived  a  friendly  act,  but  not  without  telling 
his  friends  of  it,  and  also  my  reasons.  ,  He  then  asked  me  what 
ground  I  had  for  my  suspicion  of  the  man  I  mentioned  :  I  told 
him  his  great  importunity  to  get  admittance ;  and  farther,  that 
immediately  after  a  visit  which  he  made  me,  in  the  year  1775, 
I  missed  a  paper  of  a  public  nature,  and  of  great  importance  ; 
and  that  a  day  or  two  after,  and  before  it  could  be  put  to  its 
intended  use,  I  saw  it  in  the  news-papers  2. 

1  For  disa?Tange ,  see  ante,  ii.  particulars:  my  reason  for  it  is,  that 

20.  the  transaction  which  so  disturbed 

2  ‘As  I  take  no  pleasure  in  the  him  may  possibly  be  better  known 
disgrace  of  others,  I  regret  the  neces-  than  the  motives  that  actuated  me 
sity  I  am  under  of  mentioning  these  at  the  time.’  Note  by  Ha'wkitis. 

VOL.  II.  K  At 


130 


Extracts  from 


At  the  mention  of  this  circumstance  Johnson  paused  ;  but  re¬ 
covering  himself,  said,  ‘You  should  not  have  laid  hands  on  the 
book  ;  for  had  I  missed  it,  and  not  known  you  had  it,  I  should 
have  roared  for  my  book,  as  Othello  did  for  his  handkerchief1, 
and  probably  have  run  mad.’ 

I  gave  him  time,  till  the  next  day,  to  compose  himself,  and 
then  wrote  him  a  letter,  apologizing,  and  assigning  at  large  the 
reasons  for  my  conduct ;  and  received  a  verbal  answer  by 
Mr.  Langton,  which,  were  I  to  repeat  it,  would  render  me 


suspected  of  inexcusable  vanity 
‘  If  I  was  not  satisfied  with  this, 

1  Johnson  refers  to  the  speech 
where  Emilia  says  to  Othello  : — 

‘  Nay,  lay  thee  down  and  roar.’ 

(Act  v.  Sc.  2.) 
But  it  was  not  for  his  handkerchief 
that  he  roared,  for  he  did  not  as  yet 
know  the  trick  that  had  been  played 
on  him. 

2  ‘  One  of  these  volumes,’  writes 
Boswell,  ‘  Sir  John  Hawkins  informs 
us,  he  put  into  his  pocket;  for  which 
the  excuse  he  states  is,  that  he  meant 
to  preserve  it  from  falling  into  the 
hands  of  a  person  whom  he  describes 
so  as  to  make  it  sufficiently  clear  who 
is  meant ;  “  having  strong  reasons 
(said  he,)  to  suspect  that  this  man 
might  find  and  make  an  ill  use  of 
the  book.”  Why  Sir  John  should 
suppose  that  the  gentleman  alluded 
to  would  act  in  this  manner,  he  has 
not  thought  fit  to  explain.  But  what 
he  did  was  not  approved  of  by  John¬ 
son  ;  who,  upon  being  acquainted  of 
it  without  delay  by  a  friend,  ex¬ 
pressed  great  indignation,  and 
warmly  insisted  on  the  book  being 
delivered  up ;  and,  afterwards,  in 
the  supposition  of  his  missing  it, 
without  knowing  by  whom  it  had 
been  taken,  he  said,  “  Sir,  I  should 
have  gone  out  of  the  world  distrust¬ 
ing  half  mankind.”  Sir  John  next 
day  wrote  a  letter  to  Johnson,  as- 


;  it  concluded  with  these  words, 
I  must  be  a  savage 2.’ 

signing  reasons  for  his  conduct ; 
upon  which  Johnson  observed  to 
Mr.  Langton,  “  Bishop  Sanderson 
could  not  have  dictated  a  better 
letter.  I  could  almost  say,  Melius 
est  sic  penituisse  qua7n  non  errasse .” 
The  agitation  into  which  Johnson 
was  thrown  by  this  incident,  prob¬ 
ably  made  him  hastily  burn  those 
precious  records  which  must  ever  be 
regretted.’  Life^  iv.  406,  n.  1.  Bishop 
Sanderson,  I  suppose,  was  selected 
on  account  of ‘his  casuistical  learn¬ 
ing  ’  and  of  ‘  the  very  many  cases 
that  were  resolved  by  letters,’  when 
he  was  consulted  by  people  of  ‘rest¬ 
less  and  wounded  consciences.’ 
Walton’s  Lives ,  ed.  1838,  p.  378. 

According  to  Miss  Hawkins  the 
‘  person  ’  was  George  Steevens,  who 
had  a  share  in  the  St.  James’s 
Chronicle.  She  says  that  he  stole 
from  her  father’s  library  the  copy  of 
an  Address  to  the  Throne  from  the 
Magistrates  of  Middlesex  during  the 
American  war,  and  published  it  in 
his  newspaper.  Memoirs  of  L.  M. 
Hawkins ,  i.  265.  This  certainly 
was  ‘  a  paper  of  a  public  nature,’  but 
not  ‘  of  great  importance  ’ — unless  in 
the  eyes  of  a  Middlesex  Magistrate. 

Of  this  incident  there  is  no  men¬ 
tion  in  the  first  edition.  ‘  It  is  not 
so  much  to  our  purpose  to  enquire, 

7th. 


Hawkins’s  Life  of  Johnson . 


*3i 


7th x.  I  again  visited  him.  Before  my  departure,  Dr.  Brock- 
lesby  came  in,  and,  taking  him  by  the  wrist,  Johnson  gave  him 


but  the  curious  reader  may  perhaps 
be  tempted  to  ask,  why  this  remark¬ 
able  circumstantial  narrative  was 
omitted  in  the  first  edition,  or  how 
it  happens  that  the  regular  chrono¬ 
logy  is  now  varied  to  introduce  it.’ 
Gentleman' s  Magazine,  1 787,  p.  522. 

Porson,  in  his  Panegyrical  Epistle 
on  Hawkins  v.  Johnson,  thus  sar¬ 
castically  comments  on  this  fact : — 

‘  In  this  age,  which  is  so  sharp- 
sighted  in  detecting  forgery,  I  may 
perhaps  be  carried  away  by  the  pre¬ 
vailing  rage ;  but  I  cannot  help  think¬ 
ing,  that  the  whole  addition  in  pages 
585-6  is  spurious,  and  did  not  pro¬ 
ceed  from  the  pen  of  Sir  John 
Hawkins.  The  Knight’s  style  is 
clear  and  elegant  ;  this  account 
cloudy,  inconsistent,  and  embar¬ 
rassed.  But  I  shall  content  myself 
with  asking  a  few  queries  upon  this 
important  paragraph. 

‘  Qu.  i.  Would  a  writer,  confes¬ 
sedly  so  exact  in  his  choice  of  words 
as  the  Knight,  talk  iri  this  manner  : 
While  he  was  preparing — an  acci¬ 
dent  happened —  ?  As  if  one  should 
say  of  that  unfortunate  divine,  Dr. 
Dodd,  an  accident  proved  fatal  to 
him  ;  he  happened  to  write  another 
man’s  name,  etc. 

1  Qu.  ii.  Would  not  Sir  John  have 
told  us  the  name  of  the  person  who 
is  so  darkly  described  in  this  narra¬ 
tion  ?  He  is  not  usually  backward 
in  mentioning  people’s  names  at  full 
length,  where  anything  is  to  be  said 
to  their  credit. 

‘  Qu.  iii.  Would  he  not  have  told 
us  something  more  about  the  im¬ 
portant  paper  of  a  public  nature, 
which  he  missed  after  receiving  a 
visit  from  Mr.  Anonymous ;  or  would 


he  not  rather  have  inserted  it  in  the 
Life,  as  it  probably  would  have  filled 
a  page  or  two  ? 

‘  Qu.  iv.  Where  was  this  parch¬ 
ment-covered  book,  which  Sir  John 
happened  to  lay  his  fingers  upon  ? 
Was  it  lying  carelessly  about  in  the 
room,  dr  concealed  in  a  desk  ?  In 
short,  was  it  in  such  a  place  that 
a  common  acquaintance,  as  I  suppose 
Mr.  Anonymous' is  represented,  could 
have  easily  carried  it  off? 

‘  Qu.  v.  How  did  Johnson  learn 
(not  surely  from  his  eyesight),  before 
the  Knight  could  convey  his  prize 
away  (CONVEY  the  Wise  it  call),  that 
his  friend  was  taking  such  kind  care 
of  his  property  ?  You  see,  Mr.  Urban, 
how  miserably  this  story  hangs  to¬ 
gether. 

‘  Qu.  vi.  If  the  fact  was  exactly  as 
it  is  here  stated,  how  came  Johnson 
to  be  so  exceedingly  provoked,  that, 
as  we  are  left  to  collect  from  the 
sequel,  the  Knight  durst  not  approach 
him  till  he  was  appeased  by  a  peni¬ 
tential  letter  ? 

1  Qu.  vii.  What  is  become  of  this 
penitential  letter  ?  and  how  happens 
it  to  be  omitted,  if  such  a  letter  was 
ever  written  ?  Sir  John  would  cer¬ 
tainly  have  fed  us  with  so  nourishing 
a  morsel  [Life,  pi.  46)  in  a  genuine 
account  of  this  accident,  partly  to 
swell  the  volume,  and  partly  to  fur¬ 
nish  the  world  with  a  perfect  model 
of  precatory  eloquence  (lb.  p.  270). 

‘  Qu.  viii.  Would  not  the  Knight 
also  have  favoured  us  with  Johnson’s 
answer  in  detail,  without  apologizing 
for  the  omission,  by  saying,  that  it 
would  render  him  suspected  of  in¬ 
excusable  vanity  ?  If  the  answer 
was,  as  the  defenders  of  the  authen- 


1  In  the  first  edition,  6th. 
K  2 


a  look 


I32 


Extracts  from 


a  look  of  great  contempt,  and  ridiculed  the  judging  of  his  dis¬ 
order  by  the  pulse.  He  complained,  that  the  sarcocele  1  had 
again  made  its  appearance,  and  asked,  if  a  puncture  would  not 
relieve  him,  as  it  had  done  the  year  before :  the  doctor  an¬ 
swered,  that  it  might,  but  that  his  surgeon  was  the  best  judge  of 
the  effect  of  such  an  operation.  Johnson,  upon  this,  said,  ‘  How 
many  men  in  a  year  die  through  the  timidity  of  those  whom 
they  consult  for  health !  I  want  length  of  life,  and  you  fear 
giving  me  pain,  which  I  care  not  for 2.’ 

8th.  I  visited  him  with  Mr.  Langton,  and  found  him  dic¬ 
tating  to  Mr.  Strahan  another  will,  the  former  being,  as  he  had 
said  at  the  time  of  making  it,  a  temporary  one.  On  our  enter¬ 
ing  the  room,  he  said,  ‘  God  bless  you  both.’  I  arrived  just 
time  enough  to  direct  the  execution,  and  also  the  attestation  of 
it.  After  he  had  published  it,  he  desired  Mr.  Strahan  to  say 
the  Lord’s  prayer,  which  he  did,  all  of  us  joining.  Johnson, 
after  it,  uttered,  extempore,  a  few  pious  ejaculations. 

9th.  I  saw  him  in  the  evening,  and  found  him  dictating,  to 
Mr.  Strahan,  a  codicil  to  the  will  he  had  made  the  evening 
before.  I  assisted  them  in  it,  and  received  from  the  testator 
a  direction,  to  insert  a  devise  to  his  executors  of  the  house  at 
Lichfield,  to  be  sold  for  the  benefit  of  certain  of  his  relations, 
a  bequest  of  sundry  pecuniary  and  specific  legacies,  a  provision 
for  the  annuity  of  70 l.  for  Francis,  and,  after  all,  a  devise  of  all 
the  rest,  residue,  and  remainder  of  his  estate  and  effects,  to  his 
executors,  in  trust  for  the  said  Francis  Barber,  his  executors  and 
administrators;  and,  having  dictated  accordingly,  Johnson  exe¬ 
cuted  and  published  it  as  a  codicil  to  his  will 3. 


ticity  of  this  paragraph,  I  am  told, 
affirm  it  was,  melius  est  poenituisse 
quam  nunquam  peccdsse,  it  must  be 
owned  that  it  is  enough  to  make 
anybody  vain.  I  shall  attempt  a 
translation  for  the  benefit  of  your 
mere  English  readers  :  There  is  ?nore 
joy  over  a  sinner  that  repenteth  than 
over  a  just  person  that  needeth  no 
repentance .  And  we  know,  from  an 
authority  not  to  be  disputed,  that 
Johnson  was  a  great  lover  of  peni¬ 


tents  {Life,  iv.  406  [ante,  ii.  114]). 

“  God  put  it  in  thy  mind  to  take  it 
hence, 

That  thou  might’st  win  the  more 
thy  [Johnson’s]  love, 

Pleading  so  wisely  in  excuse  of  it.” 

2  Hen.  I VI 

Gent.  Mag.  1787,  pp.  751-3,  and 

P orson  Tracts,  p.  341. 

1  Life ,  iv.  239. 

2  lb.  iv.  399,  n.  6  ;  ante,  i.  448. 

3  Leigh  Hunt,  in  a  marginal  note, 

He 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


*33 


He  was  now  so  weak  as  to  be  unable  to  kneel,  and  lamented, 
that  he  must  pray  sitting,  but,  with  an  effort,  he  placed  himself 
on  his  knees,  while  Mr.  Strahan  repeated  the  Lord's  Prayer. 
During  the  whole  of  the  evening,  he  was  much  composed  and 
resigned.  Being  become  very  weak  and  helpless,  it  was  thought 
necessary  that  a  man  should  watch  with  him  all  night ;  and  one 
was  found  in  the  neighbourhood,  who,  for  half  a  crown  a  night, 
undertook  to  sit  up  with,  and  assist  him.  When  the  man  had 
left  the  room,  he,  in  the  presence  and  hearing  of  Mr.  Strahan 
and  Mr.  Langton,  asked  me,  where  I  meant  to  bury  him.  I 
answered,  doubtless,  in  Westminster  abbey :  *  If,’  said  he,  ‘  my 
executors  think  it  proper  to  mark  the  spot  of  my  interment  by 
a  stone,  let  it  be  so  placed  as  to  protect  my  body  from  injury.’ 
I  assured  him  it  should  be  done.  Before  my  departure,  he 
desired  Mr.  Langton  to  put  into  my  hands,  money  to  the 
amount  of  upwards  of  ioo /.  with  a  direction  to  keep  it  till  called 
for  k 

ioth.  This  day  at  noon  I  saw  him  again.  He  said  to  me, 
that  the  male  nurse  to  whose  care  I  had  committed  him,  was 
unfit  for  the  office.  ‘  He  is,’  said  he,  4  an  idiot,  as  aukward  as 
a  turnspit  just  put  into  the  wheel,  and  as  sleepy  as  a  dormouse2.’ 
Mr.  Cruikshank  came  into  the  room,  and,  looking  at  his  scarified 
leg,  saw  no  sign  of  a  mortification. 

nth.  At  noon,  I  found  him  dozing,  and  would  not  disturb  him. 

1 2th.  Saw  him  again  ;  found  him  very  weak,  and,  as  he  said, 
unable  to  pray. 

13th.  At  noon,  I  called  at  the  house,  but  went  not  into  his 
room,  being  told  that  he  was  dozing.  I  was  further  informed 


says  : — 4  The  omission  of  Boswell’s 
name  in  Johnson’s  will  is  remark¬ 
able,  and  I  cannot  but  think,  very 
damaging.’  A  Shelf  of  Old  Books ,  by 
Mrs.  James  T.  Fields,  1895,  p.  174. 

Leigh  Hunt  should  have  noticed, 
what  Boswell  points  out,  that  Adams, 
Burney,  Hector  and  Murphy  were 
also  omitted.  Life ,  iv.  404,  n.  To 
these  might  be  added  Mrs.  Carter, 
Miss  Burney,  and  Hannah  More, 
and  his  friends  at  Lichfield.  It  will 


be  found  that  all  his  bequests  of 
friendship  were  to  persons  (with  the 
possible  exception  of  W.  G.  Hamil¬ 
ton)  whom  he  had  seen  during  the 
last  days  of  his  life.  He  had  seen 
Dr.  Burney;  his  omission  was  prob¬ 
ably  due  to  the  forgetfulness  of  a 
dying  man. 

1  Johnson  in  his  will  mentions 
‘^ioo  now  lying  by  me  in  ready 
money.’  Life,  iv.  402,  n.  2. 

2  lb.  iv.  41 1. 


by 


134 


Extracts  from 


by  the  servants,  that  his  appetite  was  totally  gone,  and  that  he 
could  take  no  sustenance.  At  eight  in  the  evening,  of  the  same 
day,  word  was  brought  me  by  Mr.  Sastres,  to  whom,  in  his 
last  moments,  he  uttered  these  words  ‘  Jam  moriturus  *,*  that,  at 
a  quarter  past  seven,  he  had,  without  a  groan,  or  the  least  sign 
of  pain  or  uneasiness,  yielded  his  last  breath. 

At  eleven,  the  same  evening,  Mr.  Langton  came  to  me,  and, 
in  an  agony  of  mind,  gave  me  to  understand,  that  our  friend  had 
wounded  himself  in  several  parts  of  the  body2.  I  was  shocked 
at  the  news  ;  but,  upon  being  told  that  he  had  not  touched  any 
vital  part,  was  easily  able  to  account  for  an  action,  which  would 
else  have  given  us  the  deepest  concern.  The  fact  was,  that 
conceiving  himself  to  be  full  of  water,  he  had  done  that,  which 
he  had  often  solicited  his  medical  assistants  to  do,  made  two  or 
three  incisions  in  his  lower  limbs,  vainly  hoping  for  some  relief 
from  the  flux  that  might  follow. 

Early  the  next  morning,  Frank  came  to  me;  and,  being 
desirous  of  knowing  all  the  particulars  of  this  transaction,  I  in¬ 
terrogated  him  very  strictly  concerning  it,  and  received  from 
him  answers  to  the  following  effect : 

That,  at  eight  in  the  morning  of  the  preceding  day,  upon 
going  into  the  bedchamber,  his  master,  being  in  bed,  ordered 
him  to  open  a  cabinet,  and  give  him  a  drawer  in  it  ;  that  he  did 
so,  and  that  out  of  it  his  master  took  a  case  of  lancets,  and 
choosing  one  of  them,  would  have  conveyed  it  into  the  bed,  which 
Frank,  a  young  man3  that  sat  up  with  him,  seeing,  they  seized 
his  hand,  and  intreated  him  not  to  do  a  rash  action :  he  said  he 
would  not ;  but  drawing  his  hand  under  the  bed-clothes,  they 
saw  his  arm  move.  Upon  this  they  turned  down  the  clothes, 
and  saw  a  great  effusion  of  blood,  which  soon  stopped  —  That 
soon  after,  he  got  at  a  pair  of  scissars  that  lay  in  a  drawer  by  him, 
and  plunged  them  deep  in  the  calf  of  each  leg  —  That  im¬ 
mediately  they  sent  for  Mr.  Cruikshank,  and  the  apothecary, 
and  they,  or  one  of  them,  dressed  the  wounds  —  That  he  then 
fell  into  that  dozing  which  carried  him  off. — That  it  was  con¬ 
jectured  he  lost  eight  or  ten  ounces  of  blood  ;  and  that  this 

1  Life ,  iv.  418;  ante ,  ii.  7,  and  2  lb.  iv.  418  n. 
post  p.  159.  3  Mr.  Windham’s  man.  Ib.  iv.  418. 

effusion 


Hawkinses  Life  of  Johnson. 


I35 


effusion  brought  on  the  dozing,  though  his  pulse  continued  firm 
till  three  o’clock. 

That  this  act  was  not  done  to  hasten  his  end,  but  to  dis¬ 
charge  the  water  that  he  conceived  to  be  in  him,  I  have  not  the 
least  doubt x.  A  dropsy  was  his  disease  ;  he  looked  upon  himself 
as  a  bloated  carcase ;  and,  to  attain  the  power  of  easy  respira¬ 
tion,  would  have  undergone  any  degree  of  temporary  pain.  He 
dreaded  neither  punctures  nor  incisions,  and,  indeed,  defied  the 
trochar 2  and  the  lancet ;  he  had  often  reproached  his  physicians 
and  surgeon  with  cowardice  ;  and,  when  Mr.  Cruikshank  scarified 
his  leg,  he  cried  out — ‘  Deeper,  deeper ; — I  will  abide  the  con¬ 
sequence  :  you  are  afraid  of  your  reputation,  but  that  is  nothing 
to  me.’ — To  those  about  him,  he  said, — ‘  You  all  pretend  to 
love  me,  but  you  do  not  love  me  so  well  as  I  myself  do.’ 

I  have  been  thus  minute  in  recording  the  particulars  of  his 
last  moments,  because  I  wished  to  attract  attention  to  the  con¬ 
duct  of  this  great  man,  under  the  most  trying  circumstances 
human  nature  is  subject  to.  Many  persons  have  appeared  pos¬ 
sessed  of  more  serenity  of  mind  in  this  awful  scene  :  some  have 
remained  unmoved  at  the  dissolution  of  the  vital  union ;  and,  it 
may  be  deemed  a  discouragement  from  the  severe  practice  of 
religion,  that  Dr.  Johnson,  whose  whole  life  was  a  preparation 
for  his  death,  and  a  conflict  with  natural  infirmity,  was  disturbed 
with  terror  at  the  prospect  of  the  grave.  Let  not  this  relax 
the  circumspection  of  any  one.  It  is  true,  that  natural 
firmness  of  spirit,  or  the  confidence  of  hope,  may  buoy  up  the 
mind  to  the  last ;  but,  however  heroic  an  undaunted  death  may 
appear,  it  is  not  what  we  should  pray  for.  As  Johnson  lived 
the  life  of  the  righteous,  his  end  was  that  of  a  Christian :  he 
strictly  fulfilled  the  injunction  of  the  apostle,  to  work  out  his 
salvation  with  fear  and  trembling 3 ;  and,  though  his  doubts  and 


1  ‘  This  bold  experiment,’  writes 
Boswell,  ‘  Sir  John  Hawkins  has  re¬ 
lated  in  such  a  manner  as  to  suggest 
a  charge  against  Johnson  of  inten¬ 
tionally  hastening  his  end  ;  a  charge 
so  very  inconsistent  with  his  character 
in  every  respect,  that  it  is  injurious 
even  to  refute  it,  as  Sir  John  has 


thought  it  necessary  to  do.  It  is 
evident,  that  what  Johnson  did  in 
hopes  of  relief  indicated  an  extra¬ 
ordinary  eagerness  to  retard  his  dis¬ 
solution.’  Life ,  iv.  399,  n.  6. 

2  Johnson  defines  trocar  as  ‘a 
chirurgical  instrument.’ 

3  Philippians  ii.  12. 


scruples 


136 


Extracts  from 


scruples  were  certainly  very  distressing  to  himself,  they  give 
his  friends  a  pious  hope,  that  he,  who  added  to  almost  all  the 
virtues  of  Christianity,  that  religious  humility  which  its  great 
Teacher  inculcated,  will,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  receive  the 
reward  promised  to  a  patient  continuance  in  well-doing. 

A  few  days  after  his  departure,  Dr.  Brocklesby  and  Mr.  Cruik- 
shank,  who,  with  great  assiduity  and  humanity,  (and  I  must 
add,  generosity,  for  neither  they,  nor  Dr.  Heberden,  Dr.  Warren, 
nor  Dr.  Butter,  would  accept  any  fees1)  had  attended  him, 
signified  a  wish,  that  his  body  might  be  opened.  This  was 
done,  and  the  report  made  was  to  this  effect : 

Two  of  the  valves  of  the  aorta  ossified. 

The  air-cells  of  the  lungs  unusually  distended. 

One  of  the  kidneys  destroyed  by  the  pressure  of  the  water. 

The  liver  schirrous. 

A  stone  in  the  gall-bladder,  of  the  size  of  a  common  goose¬ 
berry. 

On  Monday  the  20th  of  December,  his  funeral  was  celebrated 
and  honoured  by  a  numerous  attendance  of  his  friends,  and 
among  them,  by  particular  invitation,  of  as  many  of  the  literary 
club  as  were  then  in  town,  and  not  prevented  by  engagements  2. 
The  dean  of  Westminster,  upon  my  application,  would  gladly 
have  performed  the  ceremony  of  his  interment,  but,  at  the  time, 
was  much  indisposed  in  his  health ;  the  office,  therefore,  de¬ 
volved  upon  the  senior  prebendary,  Dr.  Taylor,  who  performed 
it  with  becoming  gravity  and  seriousness.  All  the  prebendaries, 
except  such  as  were  absent  in  the  country,  attended  in  their 
surplices  and  hoods :  they  met  the  corpse  at  the  west  door  of 


1  Johnson,  in  his  Life  of  Garth, 
says  : — ‘  I  believe  every  man  has 
found  in  physicians  great  liberality 
and  dignity  of  sentiment,  very  prompt 
effusion  of  beneficence,  and  willing¬ 
ness  to  exert  a  lucrative  art,  where 
there  is  no  hope  of  lucre.’ 

‘I  have  been  so  ill,5  wrote  Hannah 
More,  ‘  that  my  friends  have  sent 
Dr.  Warren  to  me.  He  is  a  most 
agreeable,  as  well  as  able  man ;  pays 


me  every  attention,  but  will  never 
take  a  fee.  This  is  uniformly  the 
case  whatever  physician  I  consult, 
and  I  have  consulted  all  that  are 
eminent.5  H.  More’s  Memoirs ,  ii.  433. 
There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that 
the  physicians  of  the  present  age 
fall  short  of  those  whose  beneficence 
Johnson  and  Hannah  More  cele¬ 
brated. 

2  For  a  list  of  those  who  attended 

their 


Hawkins's  Life  of  Johnson. 


i37 


their  church,  and  performed,  in  the  most  respectful  manner,  all 
the  honours  due  to  the  memory  of  so  great  a  man  x. 

His  body,  enclosed  in  a  leaden  coffin,  is  deposited  in  the 
south  transept  of  the  abbey,  near  the  foot  qf  Shakespeare’s 
monument,  and  close  to  the  coffin  of  his  friend  Garrick.  Agree¬ 
able  to  his  request,  a  stone  of  black  marble2  covers  his  grave, 
thus  inscribed : 

Samuel  Johnson,  L.L.D. 

Obiit  XIII  die  Decembris, 

Anno  Domini 
M  DCC  LXXXIV, 

Aitatis  suae  LXXV.  (Page  594-) 

The  truth  of  the  matter  is,  that  his  whole  life  was  a  conflict 
with  his  passions  and  humours,  and  that  few  persons  bore  repre¬ 
hension  with  more  patience  than  himself.  After  his  decease, 
I  found  among  his  papers  an  anonymous  letter,  that  seemed  to 
have  been  written  by  a  person  who  had  long  had  his  eye  on 
him,  and  remarked  the  offensive  particulars  in  his  behaviour, 
his  propensity  to  contradiction,  his  want  of  deference  to  the 
opinions  of  others,  his  contention  for  victory  over  those  with 
whom  he  disputed,  his  local  prejudices  and  aversions,  and  other 
his  evil  habits  in  conversation,  which  made  his  acquaintance 


see  post  in  G.  Steevens’s  Anecdotes , 
and  Letters ,  ii.  434.  Of  the  members 
of  the  Literary  Club  who  did  not 
attend  the  following  is  the  list  in  the 
order  of  their  seniority : — 

Bishop  Percy. 

Sir  Robert  Chambers. 

Earl  of  Charlemont. 

Sir  William  Jones  (absent  in  India). 

Agmondesham  Vesey. 

James  Boswell. 

Charles  James  Fox. 

Dr.  George  Fordyce. 

Edward  Gibbon. 

Adam  Smith. 

Bishop  Barnard. 

Dr.  Joseph  Warton. 

Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan. 


Earl  of  Upper  Ossory. 

Bishop  Marlay. 

Earl  Spencer. 

Bishop  Shipley. 

Lord  Eliot. 

Thomas  Warton. 

Earl  of  Lucan. 

Sir  William  Hamilton. 

Viscount  Palmerston. 

Dr.  Warren  was  elected  a  member 
three  days  after  the  funeral. 

1  This  is  Hawkins’s  reply  to  the 
charge  of  neglect  brought  against 
them  and  him.  Ante ,  i.  449  n. ; 
Life ,  iv.  420  n. 

2  Boswell  correctly  describes  it  as 
‘  a  large  blue  flag-stone.’  Life,  iv. 
419. 


shunned 


138  Extracts  from  Hawkins3 s  Life  of  Johnson. 


shunned  by  many,  who,  as  a  man  of  genius  and  worth,  highly 
esteemed  him.  It  was  written  with  great  temper,  in  a  spirit  of 
charity,  and  with  a  due  acknowledgment  of  those  great  talents 
with  which  he  was  endowed,  but  contained  in  it  several  home 
truths.  In  short,  it  was  such  a  letter  as  many  a  one,  on  the 
receipt  of  it,  would  have  destroyed.  On  the  contrary,  Johnson 
preserved  it,  and  placed  it  in  his  bureau,  in  a  situation  so  obvious, 
that,  whenever  he  opened  that  repository  of  his  papers,  it  might 
look  him  in  the  face  ;  and  I  have  not  the  least  doubt,  that  he 
frequently  perused  and  reflected  on  its  contents,  and  endeavoured 
to  correct  his  behaviour  by  an  address  which  he  could  not  but 
consider  as  a  friendly  admonition.  (Page  601.) 


ANECDOTES  BY  MISS  HAWKINS 1 


-M- 


W IIEN  first  I  remember  Johnson  I  used  to  see  him  sometimes 
at  a  little  distance  from  the  house,  coming  to  call  on  my  father  ; 
his  look  directed  downwards,  or  rather  in  such  apparent  abstrac¬ 
tion  as  to  have  no  direction.  His  walk  was  heavy,  but  he  got 
on  at  a  great  rate,  his  left  arm  always  fixed  across  his  breast,  so 
as  to  bring  the  hand  under  his  chin  ;  and  he  walked  wide,  as  if 
to  support  his  weight 2.  Getting  out  of  a  hackney-coach,  which 
had  set  him  down  in  Fleet  Street,  my  brother  Henry  says  he 
made  his  way  up  Bolt  Court  in  the  zig-zag  direction  of  a  flash 
of  lightning ;  submitting  his  course  only  to  the  deflections  im¬ 
posed  by  the  impossibility  of  going  further  to  right  or  left. 

His  clothes  hung  loose,  and  the  pocket  on  the  right  hand 
swung  violently,  the  lining  of  his  coat  being  always  visible. 
I  can  now  call  to  mind  his  brown  hand,  his  metal  sleeve-buttons, 
and  my  surprise  at  seeing  him  with  plain  wristbands,  when  all 
gentlemen  wore  ruffles 3 ;  his  coat-sleeve  being  very  wide  showed 
his  linen  almost  to  the  elbow.  His  wig  in  common  was  cut  and 
bushy  ;  if  by  chance  he  had  one  that  had  been  dressed  in  separate 
curls,  it  gave  him  a  disagreeable  look,  not  suited  to  his  years  or 
character.  I  certainly  had  no  idea  that  this  same  Dr.  Johnson, 


1  From  the  Memoirs  of  Letitia 
Hawkins ,  2  vols.  8vo.  1827. 

2  ‘  When  he  walked,  it  was  like 
the  struggling  gait  of  one  in  fetters.’ 
Life,  iv.  425.  See  post,  p.  165. 

3  For  ‘the  very  rich  laced  ruffles, 


which  Mrs.  Thrale  said  were  old- 
fashioned,’  worn  by  Sir  P.  J.  Clerk, 
see  Life ,  iv.  80.  Clerk  was  a  Whig. 
‘Ah,  Sir  (said  Johnson),  ancient 
ruffles  and  modern  principles  do  not 
agree.’ 


whom 


140 


Anecdotes  by  Miss  Hawkins . 


whom  I  thought  rather  a  disgraceful  visitor  at  our  house,  and 
who  was  never  mentioned  by  ladies  but  with  a  smile,  was  to  be 
one  day  an  honour  not  only  to  us  but  to  his  country. 

I  remember  a  tailor’s  bringing  his  pattern-book  to  my  brothers, 
and  pointing  out  a  purple,  such  as  no  one  else  wore,  as  the 
doctor’s  usual  choice  \  We  all  shouted  with  astonishment,  at 
hearing  that  Polypheme,  as,  shame  to  say,  we  had  nicknamed 
him,  ever  had  a  new  coat ;  but  the  tailor  assured  us  he  was 
a  good  customer.  (Vol.  i.  p.  86.) 

On  the  death  of  Mr.  Thrale  it  was  concluded  by  some  that  he 
would  marry  the  widow ;  by  others  that  he  would  entirely  take 
up  his  residence  in  her  house,  which,  resembling  the  situation  of 
many  other  learned  men1  2 3,  would  have  been  nothing  extraordinary 
or  censurable.  The  path  he  would  pursue  was  not  evident,  when 
on  a  sudden  he  came  out  again,  and  sought  my  father  with  kind 
eagerness.  Calls  were  exchanged ;  he  would  now  take  his  tea 
with  us ;  and  in  one  of  these  evening  visits,  which  were  the 
pleasantest  periods  of  my  knowledge  of  him,  saying,  when  taking 
leave,  that  he  was  leaving  London,  Lady  H.  said,  ‘  I  suppose  you 
are  going  to  Bath  ?  ’  ‘  Why  should  you  suppose  so  ?  ’  said  he. 

‘  Because,’  said  my  mother,  ‘  I  hear  Mrs.  Thrale  is  gone  there  V 
‘  /  know  nothing  of  Mrs.  Thrale,5  he  roared  out  ;  £  good  evening 
to  you.’  The  state  of  affairs  was  soon  made  known.  (Vol.  i. 
p.  96.) 

It  is  greatly  to  the  honour  of  Johnson  that  he  never  ac¬ 
customed  himself  *  to  descant 4  ’  on  the  ingratitude  of  mankind, 
or  to  comment  on  the  many  causes  he  had  to  think  harshly  of 
the  world.  He  said  once  to  my  youngest  brother,  ‘  I  hate  a 
complainer 5 ;  ’  this  hatred  might  preserve  him  from  the  habit. 
(Vol.  i.  p.  97.) 

To  Warburton’s  great  powers  he  did  full  justice.  He  did  not 


1  It  was  a  brown  coat  that  he 
usually  wore.  ‘  He  never  deviated 
from  a  dark  colour.’  Life ,  i.  396  ; 
iii.  54,  n.  2,  325. 

2  Dr.  Watts,  for  instance.  Works , 
viii.  383. 

3  She  was  married  to  Mr.  Piozzi 


in  Bath.  Letters ,  ii.  404,  n.  3. 

4  ‘  Descant  on  mine  own  infirmity.’ 

Richard  IL1 ,  Act  i.  sc.  1. 1.  27. 

5  ‘  Sir,  I  have  never  complained  of 
the  world  ;  nor  do  I  think  that  I 
have  reason  to  complain.’  Life ,  iv. 
1 1 6.  See  also  ante ,  i.  263. 

always, 


Anecdotes  by  Miss  Hawkins. 


141 


always,  my  brother  says,  agree  with  him  in  his  notions ;  ‘  but,’ 
said  he,  *  with  all  his  errors,  si  non  errasset ,  fecerat  ille  minus! 
Speaking  of  Warburton’s  contemptuous  treatment  of  some  one 
who  presumed  to  differ  from  him,  I  heard  him  repeat  with  such 
glee  the  coarse  expressions  in  which  he  had  vented  this  feeling, 
that  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  his  hearty  approbation  x.  (Vol.  i. 
p.  108.) 

Mrs.  Anna  Williams  I  remember  as  long  as  I  can  remember  any 
one.  ...  I  see  her  now,  a  pale  shrunken  old  lady,  dressed  in 
scarlet2  made  in  the  handsome  French  fashion  of  the  time,  with 
a  lace  cap,  with  two  stiffened  projecting  wings  on  the  temples, 
and  a  black  lace  hood  over  it ;  her  grey  or  powdered  hair  ap¬ 
pearing.  Her  temper  has  been  recorded  as  marked  with  the 
Welsh  fire,  and  this  might  be  excited  by  some  of  the  meaner 
inmates  of  the  upper  floors ;  but  her  gentle  kindness  to  me 
I  never  shall  forget,  or  think  consistent  with  a  bad  temper3. 
(Vol.  i.  p.  151.) 


What  the  economy  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  house  might  be  under  his 
wife’s  administration,  I  cannot  tell  ;  but  under  Miss  Williams’s 
management,  and,  indeed,  afterwards,  when  he  was  even  more  at 
the  mercy  of  those  around  him,  it  always  exceeded  my  expecta¬ 
tion,  as  far  as  the  condition  of  the  apartment  into  which  I  was 
admitted  could  enable  me  to  judge.  It  was  not,  indeed,  his 
study  :  amongst  his  books  he  probably  might  bring  Magliabecchi 4 
to  recollection  ;  but  I  saw  him  only  in  a  decent  drawing-room  of 
a  house  not  inferior  to  others  in  the  same  local  situation,  and 
with  stout  old-fashioned  mahogany  chairs  and  tables 5.  I  have 
said  that  he  was  a  liberal  customer  to  his  tailor,  and  I  can 
remember  that  his  linen  was  often  a  strong  contrast  to  the  colour 
of  his  hands6.  (Vol.  i.  p.  208.) 


1  ‘J0HNS0N-  “When  I  read  War- 
burton  first,  and  observed  his  force 
and  his  contempt  of  mankind,  I 
thought  he  had  driven  the  world  be¬ 
fore  him  ;  but  I  soon  found  that  was 
not  the  case  ;  for  Warburton,  by  ex¬ 
tending  his  abuse,  rendered  it  in¬ 
effectual.”  ’  Life ,  v.  93.  See  also 
ante,  i.  381  n. ;  ii.  15  n. 


2  For  Hannah  More  ‘  all  gorgeous 
in  scarlet  ’  see  Life,  iv.  325,  n.  2. 

3  For  Miss  Williams’s  temper  see 
ib.  iii.  26,  220. 

4  Ante ,  ii.  87. 

5  Ante ,  ii.  135. 

6  Nevertheless  Johnson  owned  that 
he  ‘  had  no  passion  for  clean  linen.’ 
Ib.  i.  397. 


In 


142  Anecdotes  by  Miss  Hawkins. 


In  his  colloquial  intercourse,  Johnson’s  compliments  were 
studied,  and  therefore  lost  their  effect :  his  head  dipped  lower ; 
the  semicircle  in  which  it  revolved  was  of  greater  extent ;  and 
his  roar  was  deeper  in  its  tone  when  he  meant  to  be  civil.  His 
movement  in  reading,  which  he  did  with  great  rapidity,  was 
humorously  described  after  his  death,  by  a  lady,  who  said,  that 
‘  his  head  swung  seconds  V 

The  usual  initial  sentences  of  his  conversation  led  some  to 
imagine  that  to  resemble  him  was  as  easy  as  to  mimic  him,  and 
that,  if  they  began  with  ‘  Why,  Sir,’  or  ‘  I  know  no  reason,’  or 
c  If  any  man  chooses  to  think,’  or  { If  you  mean  to  say,’  they 
must,  of  course,  ‘talk  Johnson1 2.’  That  his  style  might  be  imi¬ 
tated,  is  true ;  and  that  its  strong  features  made  it  easier  to  lay 
hold  on  it  than  on  a  milder  style,  no  one  will  dispute.  (Vol.  i. 
p.  215.) 

For  the  following  trifling  circumstances  connected  with  Dr. 
Johnson  I  am  indebted  to  my  younger  brother.  ‘Speaking  of 
reading  and  study,  I  heard  him  say,  that  he  would  not  ask  a  man 
to  give  up  his  important  interests  for  them,  because  it  would  not 
be  fair ;  but  that,  if  any  man  would  employ  in  reading  that  time 
which  he  would  otherwise  waste,  he  would  answer  for  it,  if  he 
were  a  man  of  ordinary  endowment,  that  he  would  make  a 
sensible  man.  “  He  might  not,”  said  he,  “  make  a  Bentley,  but 
he  would  be  a  sensible  man 3.”  * 

1  ‘  He  commonly  held  his  head  to 
one  side  towards  his  right  shoulder, 
and  shook  it  in  a  tremttlous  manner.’ 

Life ,  i.  485. 

2  For  imitations  of  him  see  ib.  ii. 

> 

326,  n.  5,  and  for  his  ‘  No,  Sir,’  ib.  iv. 

3 1 5* 

‘  We  see  the  eyes  and  mouth 
moving  with  convulsive  twitches  ;  we 
see  the  heavy  form  rolling  ;  we  hear 
it  puffing  ;  and  then  comes  the 
“  Why,  sir  !  ”  and  the  “  What  then, 
sir?”  and  the  “No,  sir!”  and  the 
“You  don’t  see  your  way  through 
the  question,  sir  !  ”  ’  Macaulay’s 
Essays,  ed.  1843,  i.  407. 

‘He 


‘  Imitation  is  of  two  sorts  ;  the 
first  is  when  we  force  to  our  own 
purposes  the  thoughts  of  others  ;  the 
second  consists  in  copying  the  im¬ 
perfections  or  blemishes  of  celebrated 
authors.  I  have  seen  a  play  pro¬ 
fessedly  writ  in  the  style  of  Shake¬ 
speare,  wherein  the  resemblance  lay 
in  one  single  line, 

‘  And  so  good  morrow  t’  ye,  good 
master  lieutenant.’ 

Swift’s  Works ,  ed.  1803,  xxiii.  53. 
According  to  Lamb  the  writer  of 
this  play  was  Rowe.  Letters  of 
Charles  Lamb ,  ed.  1888,  i.  138. 

3  ‘  Snatches  of  reading  (said  John- 


Anecdotes  by  Miss  Hawkins . 


i43 


‘  He  was  adverse  to  departing  from  the  common  opinions  and 
customs  of  the  world,  as  conceiving  them  to  have  been  founded 
on  experience  V 

‘  He  doubted  whether  there  ever  was  a  man  who  was  not 
gratified  by  being  told  that  he  was  liked  by  the  women.5 

c  He  was  speaking  of  surgical  operations.  I  suggested  that 
they  were  now  performed  with  less  pain  than  formerly,  owing  to 
modern  improvements  in  science.  “Yes,  Sir,55  said  he,  “but  if 
you  will  conceive  a  wedge  placed  with  the  broad  end  downwards,” 
alluding  to  the  drawing  of  a  tooth,  “  no  human  power,  nor  angel, 
as  I  conceive,  can  extract  that  wedge  without  giving  pain 2.” 

t 

‘  He  spoke  contemptuously  of  the  habit  of  corresponding  by 
letter,  and  of  professing  to  pour  out  one's  soul  upon  paper 3. 
Calling  upon  him  shortly  after  the  death  of  Lord  Mansfield,  and 
mentioning  the  event,  he  said,  “Ah,  Sir !  there  was  little  learning 
and  less  virtue4.5’ 5  (Vol.  i.  p.  316.) 


son)  will  not  make  a  Bentley  or 
a  Clarke.  They  are,  however,  in  a 
certain  degree  advantageous.’  Life , 
iv.  21. 

1  See  ante,  i.  221. 

2  When  Johnson  was  suffering 
from  a  sarcocele  {Life,  iv.  239)  he 
was  attended  by  Percival  Pott,  one 
of  the  first  surgeons  of  the  day. 
When  in  1749  Pott  was  appointed 
surgeon  of  St.  Bartholomew’s  Hos¬ 
pital  ‘  the  maxim  Dolor  medicina 
doloris  still  remained  unrefuted.  Mr. 
Pott’s  tutor  treated  with  supercilious 
contempt  the  endeavours  of  his  pupil 
to  recommend  a  milder  system.  Mr. 
Pott  lived  to  see  those  remains  of 
barbarism  set  aside.’  J.  Earle’s  Life 
of  Pott.  1  Pott  directed  those  who 
tried  to  bring  back  Dodd  to  life  after 
his  execution.’  Wheatley’s  Wraxall’s 
Memoirs ,  iv.  249. 

3  ‘  It  has  been  so  long  said  as  to 
be  commonly  believed,  that  the  true 
characters  of  men  may  be  found  in 


their  letters,  and  that  he  who  writes 
to  his  friend  lays  his  heart  open 
before  him.  But  the  truth  is  that 
such  were  the  simple  friendships  of 
the  Golden  Age,  and  are  now  the 
friendships  only  of  children.’  Works , 
viii.  314.  See  Letters ,  ii.  52,  and 
Life ,  iv.  102. 

4  Lord  Mansfield  died  on  March 
20,  J793>  outliving  Johnson  by  more 
than  eight  years.  In  spite  of  this 
gross  blunder  it  is  quite  possible  that 
Johnson  thus  spoke  of  him.  Boswell 
says  that  ‘J°tmson  entertained  no 
exalted  opinion  of  his  Lordship’s 
intellectual  character.  Talking  of 
him  to  me  one  day  he  said : — “  It 
is  wonderful,  Sir,  with  how  little 
real  superiority  of  mind  men  can 
make  an  eminent  figure  in  publick 
life.’”  Life,  iv.  178.  Smollett’s  praise 
of  Mansfield  perhaps  implies  that  he 
had  no  great  learning ;  for  he  says 
that  he  had  ‘  an  innate  sagacity  that 
saved  the  trouble  of  intense  applica- 

My 


144 


Anecdotes  by  Miss  Hawkins. 


My  father  and  Boswell  grew  a  little  acquainted  ;  and  when  the 
Life  of  their  friend  came  out,  Boswell  showed  himself  very  uneasy 
under  an  injury,  which  he  was  much  embarrassed  in  defining. 
He  called  on  my  father,  and  being  admitted,  complained  of  the 
manner  in  which  he  was  enrolled  amongst  Johnson’s  friends,  which 
was  as  Mr.  James  Boswell  of  Auchinleck1.  Where  was  the 
offence  ?  It  was  one  of  those  which  a  complainant  hardly  dares 
to  embody  in  words :  he  would  only  repeat,  ‘  Well,  but  Mr.  James 
Boswell !  surely,  surely,  Mr.  James  Boswell  ‘  I  know,’ 

said  my  father,  ‘  Mr.  Boswell,  what  you  mean ;  you  would  have 
had  me  say  that  Johnson  undertook  this  tour  with  The  Boswell.’ 
He  could  not  indeed  absolutely  covet  this  mode  of  proclamation ; 
he  would  perhaps  have  been  content  with  ‘the  celebrated,’  or 
‘  the  well-known,’  but  he  could  not  confess  quite  so  much  ;  he 
therefore  acquiesced  in  the  amendment  proposed,  but  he  was 
forced  to  depart  without  any  promise  of  correction  in  a  sub¬ 
sequent  edition.  (Vol.  i.  p.  235.) 


tion.’  History  of  England,  ed.  1800, 
iii.  239.  See  Hume’s  Letters  to 
Strahan,  p.  125,  ?i.  13. 

1  Hawkins  described  him  as  ‘  Mr. 
James  Boswell,  a  native  of  Scotland.’ 
Hawkins,  p.  472.  Boswell  in  return, 
in  enumerating  the  members  of  the 
Ivy  Lane  Club,  described  him  as 


‘Mr.  John  Hawkins,  an  attorney.’ 
Life,  i.  190.  See  a?ite,  ii.  36,  in  Bos¬ 
well’s  letter  to  Malone  of  March  8, 
1791,  where  he  tells  how  he  has  got 
the  printer  of  the  Oracle  to  promise 
to  mention  that  some  lines  by  Mr. 
Boswell  are  not  by  James  Boswell , 
Esq.  See  also  Life ,  ii.  382,  n.  1. 


NARRATIVE  BY  JOHN  HO  OLE 


*♦ 


[Published  in  the  European  Magazine  for  September,  1779, 
P-  i53* 

For  John  Hoole,  see  Life ,  ii.  289  ;  iv.  70. 

Lamb  wrote  in  1797  :  ‘  Fairfax  I  have  been  in  quest  of  a  long 
time.  Johnson  in  his  Life  of  Waller  gives  a  most  delicious 
specimen  of  him,  and  adds,  in  the  true  manner  of  that  delicate 
critic,  as  well  as  amiable  man,  “  It  may  be  presumed  that  this 
old  version  will  not  be  much  read  after  the  elegant  translation 
of  my  friend,  Mr.  Hoole.”  I  endeavoured — I  wished  to  gain 
some  idea  of  Tasso  from  this  Mr.  Hoole,  the  great  boast  and 
ornament  of  the  India  House,  but  soon  desisted.  I  found  him 
more  vapid  than  small  beer  1‘  sun-vinegared.”  ’ 

What  Johnson  wrote  was:  ‘Fairfax’s  work,  after  Mr.  Hoole’s 
translation,  will  perhaps  not  be  soon  reprinted.’  Works ,  vii. 
216. 

Lady  Louisa  Stuart  writing  to  Sir  Walter  Scott  on  Feb.  10, 
1817,  thus  describes  Hoole  : — ‘  He  once  fell  in  my  way  near  thirty 
years  ago.  He  was  a  clerk  in  the  India  House,  a  man  of  business 
of  that  ancient  breed,  now  extinct,  which  used  to  be  as  much 
marked  by  plaited  cambric  ruffles,  a  neat  wig,  a  snuff-coloured 
suit  of  clothes,  and  a  corresponding  sobriety  of  look,  as  one  race 
of  spaniels  is  by  the  black  nose  and  silky  hair.  “  When  I  have 
been  long  otherwise  employed,  and  out  of  the  habit  of  writing 
verse,”  said  he,  “  I  find  it  rather  difficult  and  get  on  slowly  ;  but 

VOL.  II.  L  after 


146 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


after  a  little  practice  I  fall  into  the  track  again  ;  then  I  can  easily 
make  a  hundred  lines  in  a  day.”  ’  Familiar  Letters  of  Sir 
Walter  Scotty  1894,  i.  409.] 

Saturday,  Nov.  20,  1784. — This  evening,  about  eight  o’clock, 
I  paid  a  visit  to  my  dear  friend  Dr.  Johnson,  whom  I  found  very 
ill  and  in  great  dejection  of  spirits.  We  had  a  most  affecting 
conversation  on  the  subject  of  religion,  in  which  he  exhorted 
me,  with  the  greatest  warmth  of  kindness,  to  attend  closely  to 
every  religious  duty,  and  particularly  enforced  the  obligation  of 
private  prayer  and  receiving  the  Sacrament.  He  desired  me  to 
stay  that  night  and  join  in  prayer  with  him ;  adding,  that  he 
always  went  to  prayer  every  night  with  his  man  Francis.  He 
conjured  me  to  read  and  meditate  upon  the  Bible,  and  not  to 
throw  it  aside  for  a  play  or  a  novel.  He  said  he  had  himself 
lived  in  great  negligence  of  religion  and  worship  for  forty  years ; 
that  he  had  neglected  to  read  his  Bible,  and  had  often  reflected 
what  he  could  hereafter  say  when  he  should  be  asked  why  he 
had  not  read  it x.  He  begged  me  repeatedly  to  let  his  present 
situation  have  due  effect  upon  me ;  and  advised  me,  when  I  got 
home,  to  note  down  in  writing  what  had  passed  between  us, 
adding,  that  what  a  man  writes  in  that  manner  dwells  upon 
his  mind.  He  said  many  things  that  I  cannot  now  recollect, 
but  all  delivered  with  the  utmost  fervour  of  religious  zeal  and 
personal  affection.  Between  nine  and  ten  o’clock  his  servant 
Francis  came  upstairs  :  he  then  said  we  would  all  go  to 
prayers,  and,  desiring  me  to  kneel  down  by  his  bedside,  he 
repeated  several  prayers  with  great  devotion.  I  then  took  my 
leave.  He  then  pressed  me  to  think  of  all  he  had  said,  and  to 
commit  it  to  writing.  I  assured  him  I  would.  He  seized  my 
hand  with  much  warmth,  and  repeated,  ‘  Promise  me  you  will 
do  it :  ’  on  which  we  parted,  and  I  engaged  to  see  him  the 
next  day. 

1  In  1772  he  recorded,  after  read-  know,  even  thus  hastily,  confusedly, 
ing  the  Bible  through  : — ‘  It  is  a  and  imperfectly,  what  my  Bible  con- 

comfort  to  me  that  at  last,  in  my  tains.’  Ante ,  i.  61. 
sixty-third  year,  I  have  attained  to 


Sunday 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


I47 


Sunday,  Nov.  21. — About  noon  I  again  visited  him  ;  found 
him  rather  better  and  easier,  his  spirits  more  raised,  and  his 
conversation  more  disposed  to  general  subjects.  When  I  came 
in,  he  asked  if  I  had  done  what  he  desired  (meaning  the  noting 
down  what  passed  the  night  before)  ;  and  upon  my  saying 
that  I  had,  he  pressed  my  hand  and  said  earnestly,  ‘  Thank 
you.’  Our  discourse  then  grew  more  cheerful.  He  told  me, 
with  apparent  pleasure,  that  he  heard  the  Empress  of  Russia 
had  ordered  The  Rambler  to  be  translated  into  the  Russian  lan¬ 
guage,  and  that  a  copy  would  be  sent  him  \ 

Before  we  parted,  he  put  into  my  hands  a  little  book,  by 
Fleetwood,  on  the  Sacrament2,  which  he  told  me  he  had  been 
the  means  of  introducing  to  the  University  of  Oxford  by 
recommending  it  to  a  young  student  there. 

Monday,  Nov.  22. — Visited  the  Doctor:  found  him  seemingly 
better  of  his  complaints,  but  extremely  low  and  dejected.  I  sat 
by  him  till  he  fell  asleep,  and  soon  after  left  him,  as  he  seemed 
little  disposed  to  talk ;  and,  on  my  going  away,  he  said,  em¬ 
phatically,  *  I  am  very  poorly  indeed !  ’ 

Tuesday,  Nov.  23. — Called  about  eleven:  the  Doctor  not  up  : 
Mrs.  Gardiner 3  in  the  dining-room  :  the  Doctor  soon  came  to 
us,  and  seemed  more  cheerful  than  the  day  before.  He  spoke  of 
his  design  to  invite  a  Mrs.  Hall  4  to  be  with  him,  and  to  offer  her 


1  He  had  been  misinformed.  Life, 
iv.  277.  An  anonymous  correspondent 
from  St.  Petersburg  informs  me  that 
‘a  very  complete  condensation  of 
Boswell’s  Johnson  was  published  in 
Russian  by  a  distinguished  critic, 
Drujinine,  in  1851  and  1852.  It  has 
been  republished  in  his  complete 
works,  1865,  and  is  included  in  the 
first  245  close  -  printed  pages  of 
vol.  iv.’ 

The  Wealth  of  Nations  was  trans¬ 
lated  into  Russian  nineteen  years 
after  Johnson’s  death,  and  at  once 
raised  the  question  of  ‘  the  relative 
advantages  of  free  and  servile  labour 
in  agriculture.’  Kovalevsky’s  Modem 

L  2 


Customs  and  Ancient  Laws  of  Russia, 
p.  222. 

2  The  Reasonable  Communicant , 
by  W.  Fleetwood,  D.D.,  late  Lord 
Bishop  of  Ely,  1704.  Fleetwood  was 
born  in  1656  and  died  in  1723.  The 
following  passage  in  this  work  is 
opposed  to  the  common  opinion  of 
the  heavy  breakfasts  of  our  fore¬ 
fathers  : — ‘  I  do  not  suppose  that  any 
one  makes  a  full  meal  in  the  morn¬ 
ing,  that  is  not  going  to  strong 
Labour,  much  less  upon  Sunday .’ 
16th  ed.  1748,  p.  77. 

3  Ante ,  i.  80. 

4  John  Wesley’s  sister.  Life,  iv. 
92. 


Mrs. 


148 


Narrative  by  John  Ho  ole. 


Mrs.  Williams’s  room.  Called  again  about  three:  found  him 
quite  oppressed  with  company  that  morning,  therefore  left  him 
directly. 

Wednesday,  Nov.  24. — Called  about  seven  in  the  evening : 
found  him  very  ill  and  very  low  indeed.  He  said  a  thought 
had  struck  him  that  his  rapid  decline  of  health  and  strength 
might  be  partly  owing  to  the  town  air,  and  spoke  of  getting 
a  lodging  at  Islington,  I  sat  with  him  till  past  nine,  and  then 
took  my  leave. 

Thursday,  Nov.  25. — About  three  in  the  afternoon  was  told 
that  he  desired  that  day  to  see  no  company.  In  the  evening, 
about  eight,  called  with  Mr.  Nicol x,  and,  to  our  great  surprise, 
we  found  him  then  setting  out  for  Islington,  to  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Strahan’s1 2.  He  could  scarce  speak.  We  went  with  him  down 
the  court  to  the  coach.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  servant 
Frank  and  Mr.  Lowe  the  painter3.  I  offered  myself  to  go  with 
him  but  he  declined  it. 

Friday,  Nov.  26. — Called  at  his  house  about  eleven  :  heard  he 
was  much  better,  and  had  a  better  night  than  he  had  known 
a  great  while,  and  was  expected  home  that  day.  Called  again 
in  the  afternoon — not  so  well  as  he  was,  nor  expected  home  that 
night. 

Saturday,  Nov.  27. — Called  again  about  noon:  heard  he  was 
much  worse :  went  immediately  to  Islington,  where  I  found  him 
extremely  bad,  and  scarce  able  to  speak,  with  the  asthma.  Sir 
John  Hawkins,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Strahan,  and  Mrs.  Strahan,  were 
with  him.  Observing  that  we  said  little,  he  desired  that  we 
would  not  constrain  ourselves,  though  he  was  not  able  to  talk 
with  us.  Soon  after  he  said  he  had  something  to  say  to  Sir 
John  Hawkins,  on  which  we  immediately  went  down  into  the 


1  Mr.  George  Nicol,  of  Pall  Mall. 
HOOLE.  The  King’s  bookseller.  Life , 
iv.  251  ;  Letters ,  ii.  438. 

2  Rev.  George  Strahan,  Vicar  of 
Islington.  Life,  iv.  271, 416;  Letters , 
ii.  88. 

John  Nichols,  writing  of  himself, 
says : — ‘  In  the  summer  of  1803  he 


withdrew  from  the  trammels  of  busi¬ 
ness  to  a  house  in  his  native  village 
[Islington].’  Lit.  Hist.  viii.  Preface, 
p.  5.  Nineteen  years  earlier  Isling¬ 
ton,  when  Johnson  visited  it  for 
change  of  air,  was  still  less  a  part  of 
London. 

3  Life ,  iii.  324  ;  iv.  202. 


parlour. 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


149 


parlour.  Sir  John  soon  followed  us,  and  said  he  had  been 
speaking  about  his  will1.  Sir  John  started  the  idea  of  pro¬ 
posing  to  him  to  make  it  on  the  spot;  that  Sir  John  should 
dictate  it,  and  that  I  should  write  it.  He  went  up  to  propose  it, 
and  soon  came  down  with  the  Doctor’s  acceptance.  The  will 
was  then  begun  ;  but  before  we  proceeded  far,  it  being  necessary, 
on  account  of  some  alteration,  to  begin  again,  Sir  John  asked 
the  Doctor  whether  he  would  choose  to  make  any  introductory 
declaration  respecting  his  faith.  The  Doctor  said  he  would. 
Sir  John  further  asked  if  he  would  make  any  declaration  of  his 
being  of  the  church  of  England  :  to  which  the  Doctor  said 
‘  A To  !  ’  but,  taking  a  pen,  he  wrote  on  a  paper  the  following 
words,  which  he  delivered  to  Sir  John,  desiring  him  to  keep 
it  : — ‘  I  commit  to  the  infinite  mercies  of  Almighty  God  my 
soul,  polluted2  with  many  sins;  but  purified,  I  trust,  with  re¬ 
pentance  and  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ.’  While  he  was  at 
Mr.  Strahan’s,  Dr.  Brocklesby  came  in,  and  Dr.  Johnson  put 
the  question  to  him,  whether  he  thought  he  could  live  six 
weeks  ?  to  which  Dr.  Brocklesby  returned  a  very  doubtful 
answer3,  and  soon  left  us.  After  dinner  the  will  was  finished, 
and  about  six  we  came  to  town  in  Sir  John  Hawkins’s  carriage  ; 
Sir  John,  Dr.  Johnson,  Mr.  Ryland4  (who  came  in  after  dinner), 
and  myself.  The  Doctor  appeared  much  better  in  the  way 
home,  and  talked  pretty  cheerfully5.  Sir  John  took  leave  of  us 
at  the  end  of  Bolt  Court,  and  Mr.  Ryland  and  myself  went  to 
his  house  with  the  Doctor,  who  began  to  grow  very  ill  again. 
Mr.  Ryland  soon  left  us,  and  I  remained  with  the  Doctor  till 
Mr.  Sastres 6  came  in.  We  stayed  with  him  about  an  hour, 
when  we  left  him  on  his  saying  he  had  some  business  to  do. 
Mr.  Sastres  and  myself  went  together  homewards,  discoursing 


1  Ante ,  ii.  124. 

2  Life ,  iv.  404,  440.  To  the  in¬ 

stances  given  there  of  the  use  of 
polluted  I  would  add  the  following 

by  Johnson. — ‘ Pollute  his  canvas 

with  deformity.’  Ib.  i.  330.  ‘  Dryden 

seldom  pollutes  his  page  with  an 
adverse  name.’  Works ,  vii.  294. 


‘  Pope  polluted  his  will  with  female 
resentment.’  Ib.  viii.  307. 

3  Ante,  ii.  122 ;  Life,  iv.  415. 

4  Letters,  i.  56. 

5  ‘  In  the  way  thither  he  appeared 
much  at  ease,  and  told  stories.’ 
Ante,  ii.  126. 

6  Ante,  i.  292. 


Narrative  by  John  Ho  ole. 


i5° 


on  the  dangerous  state  of  our  friend,  when  it  was  resolved  that 
Mr.  Sastres  should  write  to  Heberden  1 ;  but  going  to  his  house 
that  night,  he  fortunately  found  him  at  home,  and  he  promised 
to  be  with  Dr.  Johnson  next  morning. 

Sunday,  Nov.  28. — Went  to  Dr.  Johnson’s  about  two  o’clock  : 
met  Mrs.  Hoole  coming  from  thence,  as  he  was  asleep :  took 
her  back  with  me:  found  Sir  John  Hawkins  with  him.  The 
Doctor’s  conversation  tolerably  cheerful.  Sir  John  reminded 
him  that  he  had  expressed  a  desire  to  leave  some  small  memo¬ 
rials  to  his  friends,  particularly  a  Polyglot  Bible  to  Mr.  Lang- 
ton 2 ;  and  asked  if  they  should  add  the  codicil  then.  The 
Doctor  replied,  ‘  he  had  forty  things  to  add,  but  could  not  do 
it  at  that  time.’  Sir  John  then  took  his  leave.  Mr.  Sastres 
came  next  into  the  dining-room,  where  I  was  with  Mrs.  Hoole. 
Dr.  Johnson  hearing  that  Mrs.  Hoole  was  in  the  next  room, 
desired  to  see  her.  He  received  her  with  great  affection,  took 
her  by  the  hand,  and  said  nearly  these  words : — c  I  feel  great 
tenderness  for  you :  think  of  the  situation  in  which  you  see  me, 
profit  by  it,  and  God  Almighty  keep  you  for  Jesus  Christ’s 
sake,  Amen.’  He  then  asked  if  we  would  both  stay  and  dine 
with  him.  Mrs.  Hoole  said  she  could  not ;  but  I  agreed  to  stay. 
Upon  my  saying  to  the  Doctor  that  Dr.  Heberden  would  be 
with  him  that  morning,  his  answer  was,  ‘  God  has  called  me,  and 
Dr.  Heberden  comes  too  late.’  Soon  after  this  Dr.  Heberden 
came.  While  he  was  there,  we  heard  them,  from  the  other 
room,  in  earnest  discourse,  and  found  that  they  were  talking 

over  the  affair  3  of  the  K — g  and  C - n  4.  We  overheard 

Dr.  Heberden  say,  ‘  All  you  did  was  extremely  proper.’  After 


1  Letters ,  ii.  95,  n. ;  Life,  iv.  228. 

‘Dr.  Heberden  (as  every  physician, 
to  make  himself  talked  of,  will  set  up 
some  new  hypothesis)  pretends  that 
a  damp  house,  and  even  damp  sheets, 
which  have  ever  been  reckoned  fatal, 
are  wholesome  ;  to  prove  his  faith 
he  went  into  his  own  new  house 
totally  unaired,  and  survived  it.’ 
Walpole’s  Letters ,  vi.  220.  He  sur¬ 
vived  it  twenty-six  years  and  died  at 
the  age  of  ninety-one — the  Senior 


Fellow  of  the  College  of  Physicians. 
A.  C.  Puller’s  Life  of  Heberden,  1879, 
p.  1 7.  For  his  house  built  on  the 
site  of  Nell  G Wynne’s,  see  Letters ,  ii. 
302,  n.  1. 

2  This  was  bequeathed.  Life ,  iv. 
402,  11.  2. 

3  ‘  This  alludes  to  an  application 
made  for  an  increase  to  his  pension, 
to  enable  him  to  go  to  Italy.’  J. 
Hoole.  Life ,  iv.  326. 

4  ‘  Sic ;  but  probably  an  error  of 

Dr. 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


151 


Dr.  Heberden  was  gone,  Mr.  Sastres  and  I  returned  into  the 
chamber.  Dr.  Johnson  complained  that  sleep  this  day  had 
powerful  dominion  over  him,  that  he  waked  with  great  difficulty, 
and  that  probably  he  should  go  off  in  one  of  these  paroxysms. 
Afterwards  he  said  that  he  hoped  his  sleep  was  the  effect  of 
opium  taken  some  days  before,  which  might  not  be  worked  off. 
We  dined  together — the  Doctor,  Mr.  Sastres,  Mrs.  Davies x,  and 
myself.  He  ate  a  pretty  good  dinner  with  seeming  appetite, 
but  appearing  rather  impatient ;  and  being  asked  unnecessary 
and  frivolous  questions,  he  said  he  often  thought  of  Macbeth — 
‘  Question  enrages  him  2.’  He  retired  immediately  after  dinner, 
and  we  soon  went,  at  his  desire  (Mr.  Sastres  and  myself),  and  sat 
with  him  till  tea.  He  said  little,  but  dozed  at  times.  At  six  he 
ordered  tea  for  us,  and  we  went  out  to  drink  it  with  Mrs.  Davies  ; 
but  the  Doctor  drank  none.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor,  of  Ash¬ 
bourne,  came  soon  after;  and  Dr.  Johnson  desired  our  attend¬ 
ance  at  prayers,  which  were  read  by  Dr.  Taylor3.  Mr.  Ryland 
came  and  sat  some  time  with  him  :  he  thought  him  much  better. 
Mr.  Sastres  and  I  continued  with  him  the  remainder  of  the 
evening,  when  he  exhorted  Mr.  Sastres  in  nearly  these  words : 
4  There  is  no  one  who  has  shown  me  more  attention  than  you 
have  done,  and  it  is  now  right  you  should  claim  some  attention 
from  me.  You  are  a  young  man,  and  are  to  struggle  through 
life :  you  are  in  a  profession  that  I  dare  say  you  will  exercise 
with  great  fidelity  and  innocence ;  but  let  me  exhort  you  always 
to  think  of  my  situation,  which  must  one  day  be  yours :  always 
remember  that  life  is  short,  and  that  eternity  never  ends  !  I  say 
nothing  of  your  religion ;  for  if  you  conscientiously  keep  to  it, 
I  have  little  doubt  but  you  may  be  saved :  if  you  read  the  con¬ 
troversy,  I  think  we  have  the  right  on  our  side  ;  but  if  you  do 


the  press  for  C - r,  meaning  the 

King  and  Lord  Chancellor.’  Croker ; 
Life ,  iv.  336,  348. 

1  Most  probably  ‘  Mrs.  Davis  that 
was  about  Mrs.  Williams.’  Letters , 
ii.  332.  Perhaps  however  the  wife 
of  Tom  Davies  the  bookseller.  Life , 
i.  484. 

2  Macbeth ,  Act  iii.  sc.  4.  1.  118. 


For  his  dislike  of  questioning,  see 
Life ,  ii.  472  ;  iii.  268. 

3  This  shows  that  Johnson’s  quarrel 
with  Dr.  Taylor  was  made  up. 
Ante,  i.  96  n;  Letters,  ii.  426,  n.  3. 
He  did  not  however  bequeath  any 
memorial  to  him  as  he  did  to  most 
of  those  whom  he  saw  in  his  last 
days. 


not 


*52 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


not  read  it,  be  not  persuaded,  from  any  worldly  consideration,  to 
alter  the  religion  in  which  you  were  educated  :  change  not,  but 
from  conviction  of  reason  V  He  then  most  strongly  enforced 
the  motives  of  virtue  and  piety  from  the  consideration  of  a  future 
state  of  reward  and  punishment,  and  concluded  with  ‘  Remember 
all  this,  and  God  bless  you  !  Write  down  what  I  have  said — 
I  think  you  are  the  third  person  I  have  bid  do  this 1  2.’  At  ten 
o’clock  he  dismissed  us,  thanking  us  for  a  visit  which  he  said 
could  not  have  been  very  pleasant  to  us. 

Monday,  Nov.  29. — Called  with  my  son3  about  eleven:  saw 
the  Doctor,  who  said,  ‘You  must  not  now  stay;’  but,  as  we 
were  going  away,  he  said,  ‘  I  will  get  Mr.  Hoole  to  come 
next  Wednesday  and  read  the  Litany  to  me,  and  do  you  and 
Mrs.  Hoole  come  with  him.’  He  appeared  very  ill.  Returning 
from  the  city  I  called  again  to  inquire,  and  heard  that  Dr.  Butter  4 
was  with  him.  In  the  evening,  about  eight,  called  again  and  just 
saw  him ;  but  did  not  stay,  as  Mr.  Langton  was  with  him  on 
business.  I  met  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  going  away5. 

Tuesday,  Nov.  30. — Called  twice  this  morning,  but  did  not 
see  him :  he  was  much  the  same.  In  the  evening,  between  six 
and  seven,  went  to  his  house  :  found  there  Mr.  Langton,  Mr. 
Sastres,  and  Mr.  Ryland :  the  Doctor  being  asleep  in  the 
chamber,  we  went  all  to  tea  and  coffee ;  when  the  Doctor  came 
in  to  us  rather  cheerful,  and  entering  said,  ‘  Dear  gentlemen,  how 
do  you  do?’  He  drank  coffee,  and,  in  the  course  of  the  con¬ 
versation,  said  that  he  recollected  a  poem  of  his,  made  some 
years  ago  on  a  young  gentleman  coming  of  age.  He  repeated 
the  whole  with  great  spirit :  it  consisted  of  about  fifteen  or 
sixteen  stanzas  of  four  lines,  in  alternate  rhyme.  He  said  he 
had  only  repeated  it  once  since  he  composed  it,  and  that  he 
never  gave  but  one  copy  6.  He  said  several  excellent  things  that 
evening,  and  among  the  rest,  that  ‘  scruples  made  many  men 

1  For  conversions  ‘from  Protes-  3  The  Rev.  Samuel  Hoole.  Life , 
tantism  to  Popery,’  see  Life ,  ii.  iv.  409. 

105.  4  lb.  iii.  154.  5  lb.  iv.  413. 

2 ‘The  other  two  were  Dr.  Brockles-  6  It  was  to  Mrs.  Thrale  that  he 

by  and  myself.’  J.  Hoole.  Life ,  gave  the  copy.  Ante ,  i.  281  ;  Letters , 

iv.  414.  ii.  190;  Life>  iv.  41 1. 


miserable 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


*53 


miserable,  but  few  men  good  V  He  spoke  of  the  affectation 
that  men  had  to  accuse  themselves  of  petty  faults  or  weaknesses, 
in  order  to  exalt  themselves  into  notice  for  any  extraordinary 
talents  which  they  might  possess ;  and  instanced  Waller,  which 
he  said  he  would  record  if  he  lived  to  revise  his  life.  Waller 
was  accustomed  to  say  that  his  memory  was  so  bad  he  would 
sometimes  forget  to  repeat  his  grace  at  table,  or  the  Lord’s 
Prayer1 2,  perhaps  that  people  might  wonder  at  what  he  did  else 
of  great  moment ;  for  the  Doctor  observed,  that  no  man  takes 
upon  himself  small  blemishes  without  supposing  that  great 
abilities  are  attributed  to  him  ;  and  that,  in  short,  this  affectation 
of  candour  or  modesty  was  but  another  kind  of  indirect  self- 
praise,  and  had  its  foundation  in  vanity 3.  Frank  bringing  him 
a  note,  as  he  opened  it  he  said  an  odd  thought  struck  him,  that 
‘one  should  receive  no  letters  in  the  grave4.’  His  talk  was  in 
general  very  serious  and  devout,  though  occasionally  cheerful  : 
he  said,  ‘  You  are  all  serious  men,  and  I  will  tell  you  something. 
About  two  years  since  I  feared  that  I  had  neglected  God,  and 
that  then  I  had  not  a  mind  to  give  him  :  on  which  I  set  about 
to  read  Thomas  a  Kempis 5  in  Low  Dutch,  which  I  accomplished, 


1  Ante,  i.  38. 

2  ‘  Tout  le  monde  se  plaint  de  sa 
mdmoire,  et  personne  ne  se  plaint  de 
son  jugement.’  La  Rochefoucauld, 
Maximes ,  No.  89. 

3  ‘All  censure  of  a  man’s  self  is 
oblique  praise.  It  is  in  order  to 
show  how  much  he  can  spare.  It 
has  all  the  invidiousness  of  self- 
praise,  and  all  the  reproach  of  false¬ 
hood.’  Life,  iii.  323. 

‘  Nous  n’avouons  de  petits  ddfauts 
que  pour  persuader  que  nous  n’en 
avons  pas  de  grands.’  La  Roche¬ 
foucauld,  Maximes ,  No.  334. 

4  ‘  This  note  was  from  Mr.  Davies 
the  bookseller,  and  mentioned  a 
present  of  some  pork ;  upon  which 
the  Doctor  said,  in  a  manner  that 

seemed  as  if  he  thought  it  ill-timed, 
“  Too  much  of  this,”  or  some  such 
expression.’  J.  Hoole.  IJfe ,  iv.  413. 


5  ‘  He  was,’  says  Hawkins  (p.  544), 
‘for  some  time  pleased  with  Kempis’s 
tract  De  Imitatione  Chris  ti,  but  at 
length  laid  it  aside,  saying,  that  the 
main  design  of  it  was  to  promote 
monastic  piety,  and  inculcate  eccle¬ 
siastical  obedience.’ 

Milman  in  his  History  of  Latin 
Christianity ,  vi.  559,  speaks  of  ‘  the 
sublime  selfishness  of  the  Lmitation 
of  Christ .’  See  also  ib.  p.  484. 
Thackeray  wrote  of  it  on  Christmas 
Day,  1849: — ‘The  scheme  of  that 
book  carried  out  would  make  the 
world  the  most  wretched,  useless, 
dreary,  doting  place  of  sojourn — 
there  would  be  no  manhood,  no  love, 
no  tender  ties  of  mother  and  child, 
no  use  of  intellect,  no  trade  or 
science,  a  set  of  selfish  beings  crawl¬ 
ing  about  avoiding  one  another 
and  howling  a  perpetual  miserere.' 

and 


154 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


and  thence  I  judged  that  my  mind  was  not  impaired,  Low  Dutch 
having  no  affinity  with  any  of  the  languages  which  I  knew  x. 
With  respect  to  his  recovery,  he  seemed  to  think  it  hopeless. 
There  was  to  be  a  consultation  of  physicians  next  day :  he 
wished  to  have  his  legs  scarified  to  let  out  the  water ;  but  this 
his  medical  friends  opposed,  and  he  submitted  to  their  opinion, 
though  he  said  he  was  not  satisfied 2.  At  half-past  eight 
he  dismissed  us  all  but  Mr.  Langton.  I  first  asked  him  if 
my  son  should  attend  him  next  day,  to  read  the  Litany, 
as  he  had  desired ;  but  he  declined  it  on  account  of  the 
expected  consultation.  We  went  away,  leaving  Mr.  Langton  and 
Mr.  De  Moulins 3,  a  young  man  who  was  employed  in  copying 
his  Latin  epigrams4. 

Wednesday,  Dec.  I. — At  his  house  in  the  evening  :  drank  tea 
and  coffee  with  Mr.  Sastres,  Mr.  De  Moulins,  and  Mr.  Hall5: 
went  into  the  Doctor’s  chamber  after  tea,  when  he  gave  me 
an  epitaph  to  copy,  written  by  him  for  his  father,  mother,  and 
brother  6.  He  continued  much  the  same. 

Thursday,  Dec.  2. — Called  in  the  morning,  and  left  the  epitaph  : 
with  him  in  the  evening  about  seven  ;  found  Mr.  Langton  and 
Mr.  De  Moulins ;  did  not  see  the  Doctor  ;  he  was  in  his  chamber, 
and  afterwards  engaged  with  Dr.  Scott7. 

Friday,  Dec.  3. — Called;  but  he  wished  not  to  see  anybody. 


Letters  of  W.M.  Thacker ay.  London, 
1887,  p.  96. 

1  It  is  strange  that  he  should  not 
see  its  close  affinity  with  English. 
‘  Mr.  Burke  justly  observed  that  this 
was  not  the  most  vigorous  trial,  Low 
Dutch  being  a  language  so  near  to 
our  own.’  Life,  iv.  21.  ‘Johnson. 
“English  and  High  Dutch  have  no 
similarity  to  the  eye,  though  radically 
the  same.  Once,  when  looking  into 
Low  Dutch,  I  found  in  a  whole  page 
only  one  word  similar  to  English  ; 
stroem  like  stream ,  and  it  signified 
tide .”  5  lb.  iii.  235.  See  also  ib.  ii. 
263,  and  ante,  i.  68. 

2  He  had  reproached  Heberden 
with  being  timidorum  timidissimus , 


when  he  had  expressed  fears  about 
the  scarification.  Post  in  Windham’s 
Diary.  Heberden,  forty-two  years 
earlier,  had  attended  Bentley  at  his 
death,  and  had  refused  to  bleed  him, 
though  the  aged  patient  pressed  him. 
Monk’s  Bentley,  ii.  413. 

3  Four  years  earlier  he  wrote  to 
Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘Young  Desmoulins 
is  taken  in  an  under  something  of 
Drury-lane.’  Letters,  ii.  73. 

4  Ante,  i.  445. 

5  Perhaps  a  mistake  for  Mrs.  Hall, 
Wesley’s  sister. 

6  He  sent  it  to  Lichfield  the  next 
day.  Life ,  iv.  393. 

7  Afterwards  Lord  Stowell,  one  of 
his  executors.  Ib.  iv.  402,  n.  2. 

Consultations 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


i55 


Consultations  of  physicians  to  be  held  that  day :  called  again  in 
the  evening  ;  found  Mr.  Langton  with  him  ;  Mr.  Sastres  and 
I  went  together  into  his  chamber  ;  he  was  extremely  low.  { I  am 
very  bad  indeed,  dear  gentlemen,’  he  said  ;  ‘  very  bad,  very  low, 
very  cold,  and  I  think  I  find  my  life  to  fail.’  In  about  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  he  dismissed  Mr.  Sastres  and  me ;  but  called  me 
back  again,  and  said  that  next  Sunday,  if  he  lived,  he  designed 
to  take  the  sacrament,  and  wished  me,  my  wife,  and  son  to  be 
there.  We  left  Mr.  Langton  with  him.- 

Saturday,  Dec.  4. — Called  on  him  about  three :  he  was  much 
the  same  ;  did  not  see  him,  he  had  much  company  that  day. 
Called  in  the  evening  with  Mr.  Sastres  about  eight  ;  found  he 
was  not  disposed  for  company ;  Mr.  Langton  with  him  ;  did  not 
see  him. 

Sunday,  Dec.  5. — Went  to  Bolt  Court  with  Mrs.  Hoole  after 
eleven ;  found  there  Sir  John  Hawkins,  Rev.  Mr.  Strahan, 
Mrs.  Gardiner,  and  Mr.  De  Moulins,  in  the  dining-room.  After 
some  time  the  Doctor  came  to  us  from  the  chamber,  and  saluted 
us  all,  thanking  us  all  for  this  visit  to  him.  He  said  he  found 
himself  very  bad,  but  hoped  he  should  go  well  through  the  duty 
which  he  was  about  to  do.  The  sacrament  was  then  administered 
to  all  present,  Frank  being  of  the  number1.  The  Doctor  re¬ 
peatedly  desired  Mr.  Strahan  to  speak  louder ;  seeming  very 
anxious  not  to  lose  any  part  of  the  service,  in  which  he  joined  in 
very  great  fervour  of  devotion.  The  service  over,  he  again 
thanked  us  all  for  attending  him  on  the  occasion ;  he  said  he 
had  taken  some  opium  to  enable  him  to  support  the  fatigue :  he 
seemed  quite  spent,  and  lay  in  his  chair  some  time  in  a  kind  of 
doze  :  he  then  got  up  and  retired  into  his  chamber.  Mr.  Ryland 
then  called  on  him.  I  was  with  them  :  he  said  to  Mr.  Ryland, 
‘  I  have  taken  my  viaticum :  I  hope  I  shall  arrive  safe  at  the 
end  of  my  journey,  and  be  accepted  at  last/  He  spoke  very 


1  For  the  prayer  which  Johnson 
composed  see  ante ,  i.  12 1. 

Hawkins,  who  said  that  Frank’s 
‘  first  master  had  in  great  humanity 
made  him  a  Christian,5  and  whose 
last  words  in  his  Life  of  fohnson  are 


a  protest  against  ‘ostentatious  bounty 
and  favour  to  negroes'  must,  brutal 
fellow  that  he  was,  with  great  in¬ 
dignation  have  seen  the  black  ser¬ 
vant  admitted.  See  also  ante,  ii. 
124  n. ;  Life,  iv.  441. 


despondingly 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


despondingly  several  times :  Mr.  Ryland  comforted  him,  observing 
that  ‘  we  had  great  hopes  given  us.’  ‘  Yes/  he  replied,  ‘we  have 
hopes  given  us  ;  but  they  are  conditional,  and  I  know  not  how 
far  I  have  fulfilled  those  conditions  *.’  He  afterwards  said 
‘  However,  I  think  that  I  have  now  corrected  all  bad  and  vicious 
habits.’  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  called  on  him  :  we  left  them  to¬ 
gether.  Sir  Joshua  being  gone,  he  called  Mr.  Ryland  and  me 
again  to  him  :  he  continued  talking  very  seriously,  and  repeated 
a  prayer  or  collect  with  great  fervour,  when  Mr.  Ryland  took 
his  leave.  My  son  came  to  us  from  his  church :  we  were  at 
dinner — Dr.  Johnson,  Mrs.  Gardiner,  myself,  Mrs.  Hoole,  my  son> 
and  Mr.  De  Moulins.  He  ate  a  tolerable  dinner,  but  retired  directly 
after  dinner.  He  had  looked  out  a  sermon  of  Dr.  Clarke’s1 2, 
‘  On  the  Shortness  of  Life,’  for  me  to  read  to  him  after  dinner, 
but  he  was  too  ill  to  hear  it.  After  six  o’clock  he  called  us 
all  into  his  room,  when  he  dismissed  us  for  that  night  with 
a  prayer,  delivered  as  he  sat  in  his  great  chair  in  the  most 
fervent  and  affecting  manner,  his  mind  appearing  wholly  em¬ 
ployed  with  the  thoughts  of  another  life.  He  told  Mr.  Ryland 
that  he  wished  not  to  come  to  God  with  opium  3,  but  that  he 
hoped  he  had  been  properly  attentive.  He  said  before  us  all, 
that  when  he  recovered  the  last  spring,  he  had  only  called  it 
a  reprieve ,  but  that  he  did  think  it  was  for  a  longer  time  ;  how¬ 
ever  he  hoped  the  time  that  had  been  prolonged  to  him  might 
be  the  means  of  bringing  forth  fruit  meet  for  repentance. 

Monday,  Dec.  6. — Sent  in  the  morning  to  make  inquiry  after 
him  ;  he  was  much  the  same ;  called  in  the  evening  ;  found 
Mr.  Cruikshanks  4  the  surgeon  with  him  ;  he  said  he  had  been 
that  day  quarrelling  with  all  his  physicians ;  he  appeared  in 
tolerable  spirits. 

Tuesday,  Dec.  7. — Called  at  dinner  time ;  saw  him  eat  a  very 
good  dinner  :  he  seemed  rather  better,  and  in  spirits. 


1  Life ,  iv.  299  ;  Letters,  ii.  380. 

‘  Quid  sum  miser  tunc  dicturus, 
Quern  patronum  rogaturus, 
Quum  vix  justus  sit  securus  ?  ’ 

Dies  Irae. 

2  Johnson  ‘had  made  it  a  rule  not 

to  admit  Dr.  Clarke’s  name  in  his 


Dictionary,’  but  on  his  death-bed 
‘  he  pressed  Dr.  Brocklesby  to  read 
his  sermons.’  Life,  iv.  416;  ante , 
i.  38. 

3  Ante ,  ii.  128. 

4  W.  C.  Cruikshank.  Life,  iv. 
239- 

Wednesday 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


*57 


Wednesday,  Dec.  8. — Went  with  Mrs.  Hoole  and  my  son,  by 
appointment :  found  him  very  poorly  and  low,  after  a  very  bad 
night.  Mr.  Nichols  the  printer  was  there1.  My  son  read  the 
Litany,  the  Doctor  several  times  urging  him  to  speak  louder  2. 
After  prayers  Mr.  Langton  came  in :  much  serious  discourse  :  he 
warned  us  all  to  profit  by  his  situation ;  and,  applying  to  me, 
who  stood  next  him,  exhorted  me  to  lead  a  better  life  than  he 
had  done.  4  A  better  life  than  you,  my  dear  Sir !  ’  I  repeated. 
He  replied  warmly,  ‘  Don’t  compliment  now3.’  He  told  Mr.  Lang¬ 
ton  that  he  had  the  night  before  enforced  on - 4  a  powerful 

argument  to  a  powerful  objection  against  Christianity. 

He  had  often  thought  it  might  seem  strange  that  the  Jews, 
who  refused  belief  to  the  doctrine  supported  by  the  miracles  of 
our  Saviour,  should  after  his  death  raise  a  numerous  church ;  but 
he  said  that  they  expected  fully  a  temporal  prince,  and  with  this 
idea  the  multitude  was  actuated  when  they  strewed  his  way  with 
palm-branches  on  his  entry  into  Jerusalem;  but  finding  their 
expectations  afterwards  disappointed,  rejected  him,  till  in  process 
of  time,  comparing  all  the  circumstances  and  prophecies  of  the 
Old  Testament,  confirmed  in  the  New,  many  were  converted  ; 
that  the  Apostles  themselves  once  believed  him  to  be  a  temporal 


1  Life ,  iv.  407  ;  for  Nichols’s  par¬ 
ticulars  of  his  conversation.  In  the 
Preface  to  the  Gentleman' s  Maga¬ 
zine ,  1784,  are  given  some  verses  by 
Nichols,  where  Johnson  is  men¬ 
tioned,  with  this  footnote  on  his 
name  :  ‘To  whom  the  writer  of  these 
lines  had  the  pleasure  of  shewing 
them  in  the  last  interview  with  which 
he  was  honoured  by  this  illustrious 
pattern  of  true  piety.  “  Take  care  of 
your  eternal  salvation,”  and  “  Re¬ 
member  to  observe  the  Sabbath  ;  let 
it  never  be  a  day  of  business,  nor 
wholly  a  day  of  dissipation,”  were 
parts  of  his  last  solemn  farewell. 
“  Let  my  words  have  their  due 
weight,”  he  added  ;  “  they  are  those 
of  a  dying  man.”  ’ 

2  ‘He  more  than  once  interrupted 

Mr.  Hoole  with,  “  Louder,  my  dear 


Sir,  louder,  I  entreat  you,  or  you 
pray  in  vain.”’  Mr.  Croker  records 
the  following  communication  from 
Mr.  Hoole  : — ‘  When  I  called  upon 
him,  the  morning  after  he  had  pressed 
me  rather  roughly  to  read  louder,  he 
said,  “  I  was  peevish  yesterday;  you 
must  forgive  me  :  when  you  are  as 
old  and  as  sick  as  I  am,  perhaps  you 
may  be  peevish  too.”  I  have  heard 
him  make  many  apologies  of  this 
kind.’  Life,  iv.  409. 

3  ‘Alas  !  when  I  receive  these  un¬ 
due  compliments,  I  am  ready  to 
answer  with  my  old  friend  Johnson — 
“  Sir,  I  am  a  miserable  sinner.”  ’ 
Hannah  More’s  Memoirs,  ii.  437. 

4  See  fost  in  Mr.  Windham’s 
Diary ,  where  such  an  argument  was 
enforced  on  Dec.  7. 


prince 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


prince.  He  said  that  he  had  always  been  struck  with  the  resem¬ 
blance  of  the  Jewish  passover  and  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
redemption r.  He  thanked  us  all  for  our  attendance,  and  we  left 
him  with  Mr.  Langton. 

Thursday,  Dec.  9. — Called  in  the  evening ;  did  not  see  him,  as 
he  was  engaged. 

Friday,  Dec.  10. — Called  about  eleven  in  the  morning;  saw 
Mr.  La  Trobe  there 1  2 :  neither  of  us  saw  the  Doctor,  as  we  under¬ 
stood  he  wished  not  to  be  visited  that  day.  In  the  evening 
I  sent  him  a  letter,  recommending  Dr.  Dalloway  (an  irregular 
physician3)  as  an  extraordinary  person  for  curing  the  dropsy. 
He  returned  me  a  verbal  answer  that  he  was  obliged  to  me, 
but  that  it  was  too  late.  My  son  read  prayers  with  him  this 
day. 

Saturday,  Dec.  11.— Went  to  Bolt  Court  about  twelve;  met 
there  Dr.  Burney,  Dr.  Taylor,  Sir  John  Hawkins,  Mr.  Sastres, 
Mr.  Paradise4,  Count  Zenobia,  and  Mr.  Langton.  Mrs.  Hoole 
called  for  me  there  :  we  both  went  to  him  ;  he  received  us  very 
kindly ;  told  me  he  had  my  letter,  but  ‘  it  was  too  late  for 
doctors,  regular  or  irregular .’  His  physicians  had  been  with 
him  that  day,  but  prescribed  nothing.  Mr.  Cruikshanks  came  ; 
the  Doctor  was  rather  cheerful  with  him ;  he  said,  ‘  Come,  give 
me  your  hand,’  and  shook  him  by  the  hand,  adding,  ‘You  shall 
make  no  other  use  of  it  now;’  meaning  he  should  not  examine 
his  legs.  Mr.  Cruikshanks  wished  to  do  it,  but  the  Doctor  would 
not  let  him.  Mr.  Cruikshanks  said  he  would  call  in  the  evening. 

Sunday,  Dec.  12. — Was  not  at  Bolt  Court  in  the  forenoon  ;  at 
St.  Sepulchre’s  school 5  in  the  evening  with  Mrs.  Hoole,  where  we 
saw  Mrs.  Gardiner  and  Lady  Rothes6;  heard  that  Dr.  Johnson 
was  very  bad,  and  had  been  something  delirious.  Went  to  Bolt 
Court  about  nine,  and  found  there  Mr.  Windham  and  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Strahan.  The  Doctor  was  then  very  bad  in  bed,  which 


1  See  post  in  Mr.  Windham’s 
Diary. 

2  A  Moravian.  Life ,  iv.  410. 

3  Johnson  was  not  the  man  to 

admit  ‘  an  irregular  physician  ’ — in 

other  words,  a  quack.  With  George 

III  he  would  have  said,  ‘  I  shall 


die  by  the  College.’  Ib.  ii.  354,  n.  2. 

4  Ante ,  1.  105,  n. 

5  The  Ladies’  Charity  School,  to 
which  Johnson  was  a  subscriber. 
Letters ,  i.  156. 

6  Bennet  Langton’s  wife.  Life^  ii. 
146. 


I  think 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


*59 


I  think  he  had  only  taken  to  that  day :  he  had  now  refused 
to  take  any  more  medicine  or  food.  Mr.  Cruikshanks  came 
about  eleven  :  he  endeavoured  to  persuade  him  to  take  some 
nourishment,  but  in  vain.  Mr.  Windham  then  went  again  to 
him,  and,  by  the  advice  of  Mr.  Cruikshanks,  put  it  upon  this 
footing — that  by  persisting  to  refuse  all  sustenance  he  might 
probably  defeat  his  own  purpose  to  preserve  his  mind  clear ,  as 
his  weakness  might  bring  on  paralytic  complaints  that  might 

affect  his  mental  powers z.  The  Doctor,  Mr.  Windham  said, 

,  *  } 

heard  him  patiently ;  but  when  he  had  heard  all,  he  desired  to 
be  troubled  no  more.  He  then  took  a  most  affectionate  leave  of 
Mr.  Windham 1  2,  who  reported  to  us  the  issue  of  the  conversation, 
for  only  Mr.  De  Moulins  was  with  them  in  the  chamber.  I  did 
not  see  the  Doctor  that  day,  being  fearful  of  disturbing  him, 
and  never  conversed  with  him  again.  I  came  away  about  half¬ 
past  eleven  with  Mr.  Windham. 

Monday,  Dec.  13. — Went  to  Bolt  Court  at  eleven  o’clock  in 
the  morning  ;  met  a  young  lady  coming  down  stairs  from  the 
Doctor,  whom,  upon  inquiry,  I  found  to  be  Miss  Morris  (a  sister 
to  Miss  Morris,  formerly  on  the  stage3).  Mrs.  De  Moulins  told 
me  that  she  had  seen  the  Doctor  ;  that  by  her  desire  he  had  been 
told  she  came  to  ask  his  blessing,  and  that  he  said,  *  God  bless 
you  !  ’  I  then  went  up  into  his  chamber,  and  found  him  lying 
very  composed  in  a  kind  of  doze  :  he  spoke  to  nobody.  Sir  John 
Hawkins,  Mr.  Langton,  Mrs.  Gardiner,  Rev.  Mr.  Strahan  and 
Mrs.  Strahan,  Doctors  Brocklesby  and  Butter,  Mr.  Steevens,  and 
Mn  Nichols  the  printer,  came  ;  but  no  one  chose  to  disturb  him 
by  speaking  to  him,  and  he  seemed  to  take  no  notice  of  any 
person.  While  Mrs.  Gardiner  and  I  were  there,  before  the  rest 
came,  he  took  a  little  warm  milk  in  a  cup,  when  he  said  some¬ 
thing  upon  its  not  being  properly  given  into  his  hand :  he  breathed 
very  regular,  though  short,  and  appeared  to  be  mostly  in  a  calm 
sleep  or  dozing,  I  left  him  in  this  state,  and  never  more  saw 
him  alive.  In  the  evening  I  supped  with  Mrs.  Hoole  and  my 

1  Life ,  iv.  415  ;  ante ,  ii.  128.  May  1,  1769.’  Hoole.  Her  likeness 

2  Life,  iv.  415,  n.  1.  as  Hope  nursing  Love  was  painted 

3  ‘  She  appeared  in  Juliet  at  Covent  by  Reynolds.  North  cote’s  Reynolds , 
Garden,  Nov.  26,  1768,  and  died  i.  185. 


son 


i6o 


Narrative  by  John  Hoole. 


son  at  Mr.  Braithwaite’s T,  and  at  night  my  servant  brought  me 
word  that  my  dearest  friend  died  that  evening  about  seven 
o’clock :  and  next  morning  I  went  to  the  house,  where  I  met 
Mr.  Seward 2 ;  we  went  together  into  the  chamber,  and  there 
saw  the  most  awful  sight  of  Dr.  Johnson  laid  out  in  his  bed, 
without  life ! 

1  ‘  That  amiable  and  friendly  man,  of  the  wits  of  the  age.’  Life ,  iv. 
who,  with  modest  and  unassuming  278. 
manners,  has  associated  with  many  2  Life ,  iii.  123. 


ANECDOTES  OF  JOHNSON 

PUBLISHED  BY  G.  KEARSLEY 1 


Mr.  Johnson  was  not  unacquainted  with  Savage’s  frailties  ; 
but  as  he  has  not  long  since  said  to  a  friend  on  this  subject,  ‘  he 
knew  his  heart,  and  that  was  never  intentionally  abandoned ;  for 
though  he  generally  mistook  the  love  for  the  practice  of  virtue,  he 
was  at  all  times  a  true  and  sincere  believer 2.* 

Savage  living  very  intimately  with  most  of  the  wits  of  what 
is  called  our  Augustan  age,  gave  Mr.  Johnson  many  anecdotes, 
with  which  he  has  since  enriched  his  Biographical  Prefaces3. 
The  following,  however,  I  believe,  has  never  appeared  in  print 
before. 

Sir  Richard  Steele 4,  Phillips 5,  and  Savage,  spending  the  night 
together,  at  a  tavern,  in  Gerard-street 6,  Soho,  they  sallied  out  in 
the  morning — all  very  much  intoxicated  with  liquor — when  they 
were  accosted  by  a  tradesman,  going  to  his  work,  at  the  top  of 


1  This  Life  is  said  to  be  by  William 
Cooke,  known  as  ‘  Conversation 
Cooke.’  Nichols,  Lit.  Hist.  vii.  467. 
He  derived  his  name  from  his  poem 
On  Conversation .  Ib.  He  was  a 
member  of  the  Essex  Head  Club. 
Life ,  iv.  437. 

2  Johnson  in  his  Life  of  Savage 

says  that  ‘  in  cases  indifferent  [where 
friends  or  enemies  were  not  con¬ 
cerned]  he  was  zealous  for  virtue, 

truth  and  justice;  he  knew  very 
well  the  necessity  of  goodness  to 

the  present  and  future  happiness 

VOL.  II.  M 


of  mankind.’  Works,  viii.  190. 

For  principles  and  practice  see 
Life,  i.  418 ;  ii.  341  ;  v.  210,  359. 

‘No  man’s  religion  ever  survives 
his  morals.5  South’s  Sermons,  ed. 
1823,  i.  291. 

3  The  Lives  of  the  Poets.  Life,  iv. 

35) 

4  For  anecdotes  of  Steele  and  the 
bailiffs  see  Works,  viii.  104. 

5  No  doubt  Ambrose  Philips,  who 
knew  Steele.  Works,  viii.  388. 

6  At  the  Turk’s  Head  in  this 
street  the  Literary  Club  met  at  first. 

Hedge-lane 


1 62 


Anecdotes  of  Johnson 


Hedge-lane1  ;  who,  after  begging  their  pardon  for  the  liberty  of 
addressing  them  on  the  subject,  told  them — ‘that,  at  the  bottom 
of  the  lane,  he  saw  two  or  three  suspicious-looking  fellows,  who 
appeared  to  be  bailiffs, — so  that,  if  any  of  them  were  apprehensive 
of  danger,  he  had  better  take  a  different  route.’ — Not  one  of 
them  waited  to  thank  the  man,  but  flew  off,  different  ways,  each 
conscious,  from  the  embarrassments  of  his  own  affairs,  that  such 
a  circumstance  was  very  likely  to  happen  to  himself.  (Page  27.) 

Johnson,  soon  after  the  publication  of  his  English  Dictionary, 
made  a  proposal  to  a  number  of  Booksellers  convened  for  that 
purpose,  of  writing  a  Dictionary  of  Trade  and  Commerce 2.  This 
proposal  went  round  the  room  without  any  answer,  when  a  well- 
known  son  of  the  trade  3  since  dead,  remarkable  for  the  abrupt¬ 
ness  of  his  manners,  replied,  ‘  Why,  Doctor,  what  the  D — 1  do 
you  know  of  trade  and  commerce 4  ?  ’  The  Doctor  very  modestly 
answered,  ‘  Why,  Sir,  not  much  I  confess  in  the  practical  line — 
but  I  believe  I  could  glean,  from  different  authors  of  authority 
on  the  subject,  such  materials  as  would  answer  the  purpose  very 
well 5.’  (Page  34.) 

When  Cave  got  into  affluence,  it  was  usual  with  him,  upon  the 


1  Hedge  Lane  was  near  Charing 
Cross.  Dodsley’s  London ,  iii.  178. 
For  Johnson’s  visit  to  a  poor  man 
there  see  Life ,  iii.  324. 

2  Johnson  contributed  the  preface 
to  Rolt’s  Dictionary  of  Trade  and 
Commerce.  Life ,  i.  358.  See  also 
ante,  i.  412. 

3  ‘As  Physicians  are  called  the 
Faculty  and  Counsellors  at  Law  the 
Profession,  the  Booksellers  of  London 
are  denominated  the  Trade.  Johnson 
disapproved  of  these  denominations.’ 
Life ,  iii.  285. 

4  Johnson  did  not  receive  a  doctor’s 
degree  till  many  years  later  ;  neither 
is  it  likely  that  he  would  have  left 
the  form  of  the  question  unrebuked. 

5  When  Boswell  told  Johnson  of 
Sir  John  Pringle’s  observation  ‘that 


Dr.  Smith,  who  had  never  been  in 
trade,  could  not  expect  to  write  well 
on  that  subject  any  more  than  a 
lawyer  upon  physick,’  he  replied  : — 
‘  He  is  mistaken,  Sir  :  a  man  who 
has  never  been  engaged  in  trade 
himself  may  undoubtedly  write  well 
upon  trade,  and  there  is  nothing 
which  requires  more  to  be  illustrated 
by  philosophy  than  trade  does.’ 
Life ,  ii.  430. 

Of  those  ‘in  the  practical  line’ 
Smith  had  a  low  opinion.  ‘  People 
of  the  same  trade,’  he  writes,  ‘seldom 
meet  together,  even  for  merriment 
and  diversion,  but  the  conversation 
ends  in  a  conspiracy  against  the 
public,  or  in  some  contrivance  to 
raise  prices.’  Wealth  of  Nations , 
ed.  1811,  i.  177.  See  also  ib.  i.  352. 

receipt 


Published  by  G.  Kearsley. 


163 


receipt  of  any  large  sum  of  money,  to  make  his  wife  the  cash- 
keeper.  The  frequency  of  this,  and  the  dependence  which  he 
had  on  her  management  of  it,  tempted  her  to  practice  c  the 
little  pilfering  temper  of  a  wife ;  ’  she  therefore  from  time  to 
time  accumulated  a  considerable  sum,  which  Cave  knew  nothing 
of.  Her  last  illness  was  an  asthma ;  and  though  she  every  day 
grew  worse,  she  reserved  this  secret  from  her  husband  till  her 
breath  grew  so  short,  that  she  had  only  time  to  tell  him  ‘  she  had 
secreted  a  part  of  the  money  which  he  occasionally  gave  her, 
which  she  laid  out  in  India  bonds.’  She  \vas  immediately  after 
taken  in  convulsions,  and  died  before  she  had  time  to  say  where 
they  were  hid,  or  in  whose  possession  they  were  deposited. 
Cave  on  her  death  made  every  possible  enquiry  after  his  property, 
but  such  is  the  integrity  of  some  friendships ,  the  bonds  were  never 
afterwards  found  x.  (Page  47.) 

At  Lichfield  he  used  sometimes  to  recall  the  memory  of  past 
times,  and  enter  into  all  the  boyish  sports  and  gambols  of  his 
youth,  and  it  is  but  a  very  few  years  back,  that  he  obliged  the 
master  of  the  school  where  he  had  been  educated,  to  restore  to 
the  boys,  an  annual  entertainment  of  Furmenti 2,  which  had  been 
practised  in  his  days,  but  had  for  some  time  been  discontinued. 
(Page  66.) 

On  the  Sunday  night  preceding  his  death,  he  was  obliged  to 
be  turned  in  the  bed  by  two  strong  men  employed  for  that 
purpose.  He  was  at  intervals  likewise  delirious  ;  and  in  one  of 
those  fits,  seeing  a  friend  at  the  bed-side,  he  exclaimed,  ‘  What, 


1  For  this  anecdote  see  Life,  iv. 
319,  where  the  wife’s  name  is  not 
mentioned  : — ‘  Her  husband  said,  he 
was  more  hurt  by  her  want  of  con¬ 
fidence  in  him,  than  by  the  loss  of 
his  money.  “  I  told  him,”  said 
Johnson,  “that  he  should  console 
himself ;  for  perhaps  the  money 
might  be  found,  and  he  was  sure 
that  his  wife  was  gone .”  7 

Johnson  in  his  Life  of  Cave  says : — 
‘  Cave  seemed  not  at  first  much 


affected  by  her  death,  but  in  a  few 
days  lost  his  sleep  and  his  appetite, 
which  he  never  recovered.’  Works , 
vi-  433- 

2  Johnson  defines  furmenty  as 
food  made  by  boiling  wheat  in  milk. 
In  the  Gentleman' s  Magazine,  1783, 
p.  578  ;  1785,  p.  96,  it  is  stated  that 
furmety  or  frumity  is  eaten  in  many 
places  on  Mothering  Sunday  (Mid- 
Lent-Sunday)  and  on  Christmas 
Eve. 

2 


will 


164 


Anecdotes  of  Johnson 


will  that  fellow  never  have  done  talking  poetry  to  me  1 2  ? 5  He 
recovered  his  senses  before  morning,  but  spoke  little  after  this. 
His  heart,  however,  was  not  unemployed,  as  by  his  fixed  atten¬ 
tion,  and  the  motion  of  his  lips,  it  was  evident  he  was  pouring 
out  his  soul  in  prayer.  (Page  79.) 

Dr.  Johnson’s  face  was  composed  of  large  coarse  features, 
which,  from  a  studious  turn,  when  composed,  looked  sluggish, 
yet  awful  and  contemplative.  The  head  at  the  front  of  this 
book  is  esteemed  a  good  likeness ;  indeed  so  much,  that  when 
the  Doctor  saw  the  drawing,  he  exclaimed,  ‘  Well,  thou  art  an 
ugly  fellow,  but  still,  I  believe  thou  art  like  the  original  V  The 
Doctor  sat  for  this  picture  to  Mr.  Trotter3,  in  February  1782,  at 
the  request  of  Mr.  Kearsley,  who  had  just  furnished  him  with 
a  complete  list  of  all  his  works,  for  he  confessed  he  had  forgot 
more  than  half  what  he  had  written  4. 

His  face,  however,  was  capable  of  great  expression,  both  in 
respect  to  intelligence  and  mildness,  as  all  those  can  witness  who 
have  seen  him  in  the  flow  of  conversation,  or  under  the  influence 
of  grateful  feelings.  I  am  the  more  confirmed  in  this  opinion, 
by  the  authority  of  a  celebrated  French  Physiognomist,  who  has, 
in  a  late  publication  on  his  art 5,  given  two  different  etchings  of 
Dr.  Johnson’s  head,  to  shew  the  correspondence  between  the 
countenance  and  the  mind. 


1  Perhaps  he  was  haunted  by  the 

thought  of  the  writer  of  whom  he 
said :  ‘  I  never  did  the  man  an 

injury  ;  but  he  would  persist  in 
reading  his  tragedy  to  me.’  Life, 
iv.  244,  n.  2. 

2  Mme.  D’Arblay  records  that 
Johnson  saw  her  examining  ‘a  small 

engraving  of  his  portrait  from  the 
picture  of  Reynolds.  He  began  see¬ 

sawing  for  a  moment  or  two  in 
silence,  and  then,  with  a  ludicrous 

half  laugh,  peeping  over  her  shoulder, 
he  called  out  : — ‘  Ah  ha  ! — Sam 
Johnson  ! — I  see  thee  ! — and  an 
ugly  dog  thou  art  !  ’  Memoirs  of 
Dr .  Burney ,  ii.  180. 


‘  Hay  ter,’  wrote  Macaulay,  ‘has 
painted  me  for  his  picture  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  I  cannot  judge 
of  his  performance.  I  can  only  say, 
as  Charles  the  Second  did  on  a 
similar  occasion,  “  Odds  fish,  if  I  am 
like  this,  I  am  an  ugly  fellow.”  ’  Tre¬ 
velyan’s  Macaulay ,  ed.  1877,  ii.  1 6. 

3  Trotter  had  worked  with  Blake. 
Gilchrist’s  Blake ,  i.  33,  57.  This 
picture  is,  I  believe,  the  one  in  the 
Library  of  Pembroke  College. 

4  Life ,  i.  1 12  ;  iii.  321. 

5  Lavater’s  Essay  on  Physiognomy . 
Life,  iv.  422.  In  the  English  transla¬ 
tion,  published  in  1 789,  a  third  etching 
is  given,  i.  194. 


In 


Published  by  G.  Kearsley. 


i65 


In  respect  to  person,  he  was  rather  of  the  heroic  stature,  being 
above  the  middle  size ;  but  though  strong,  broad,  and  muscular, 
his  parts  were  slovenly  put  together.  When  he  walked  the 
streets,  what  with  the  constant  roll  of  his  head,  and  the  con¬ 
comitant  motion  of  his  body,  he  appeared  to  make  his  way  by 
that  motion,  independent  of  his  feet  *.  (Page  87.) 

Amongst  the  poets  of  his  own  country,  next  to  Shakespeare, 
he  admired  Milton1 2 3 ;  and  though  in  some  parts  of  the  life  of  this 
great  man,  he  has  been  rather  severe  on  his  political  character, 
there  are  others  where  he  bestows  the  highest  praises  on  his 
learning  and  genius.  To  this  I  am  happy  to  add  another 
eulogium,  which  I  heard  from  him  in  conversation  a  few  months 
before  his  death  : — ‘  Milton  (says  he)  had  that  which  rarely  fell 
to  the  lot  of  any  man — an  unbounded  imagination,  with  a  store 
of  knowledge  equal  to  all  its  calls  V  (Page  99.) 


In  his  conversation  he  was  learned,  various,  and  instructive, 
oftener  in  the  didactic  than  in  the  colloquial  line,  which  might 
have  arisen  from  the  encouragement  of  his  friends,  who  generally 
flattered  him  with  the  most  profound  attention — and  surely  it 
was  well  bestowed ;  for  in  those  moments,  the  great  variety  of 
his  reading  broke  in  upon  his  mind,  like  mountain  floods,  which 


1  Boswell  quoting  this  description 
says  : — ‘  His  peculiar  march  is  de¬ 
scribed  in  a  very  just  and  picturesque 
manner.’  Life ,  iv.  71. 

2  For  Johnson’s  estimate  of  Shake¬ 
speare  see  Life ,  ii.  86,  n.  1,  and  of 
Milton,  ib.  i.  230 ;  iv.  40 ;  ante ,  i. 
216. 

3  1  The  thoughts  which  are  occa¬ 
sionally  called  forth  in  the  progress 
[of  Paradise  Lost ]  are  such  as  could 
only  be  produced  by  an  imagination 
in  the  highest  degree  fervid  and 
active,  to  which  materials  were  sup¬ 
plied  by  incessant  study  and  un¬ 
limited  curiosity.  .  .  .  Milton  had 
considered  creation  in  its  whole 
extent,  and  his  descriptions  are 


therefore  learned.’  Works ,  vii.  130. 

Edward  FitzGerald  wrote  to  Pro¬ 
fessor  C.  E.  Norton  on  Jan.  23, 
1876: — ‘I  don’t  think  Pve  read 
Milton  these  forty  years  ;  the  whole 
scheme  of  the  poem,  and  certain 
parts  of  it,  looming  as  grand  as  any¬ 
thing  in  my  memory ;  but  I  never 
could  read  ten  lines  together  without 
stumbling  at  some  pedantry  that 
tipped  me  at  once  out  of  Paradise, 
or  even  Hell,  into  the  schoolroom, 
worse  than  either.  .  .  .  Tennyson  cer¬ 
tainly  then  thought  Milton  the  sub- 
limest  of  all  the  gang ;  his  diction 
modelled  on  Virgil,  as  perhaps 
Dante’s.’  Letters  of  Edward  Fitz¬ 
Gerald ,  1894.  ii.  193. 


he 


1 66 


Anecdotes  of  Johnson 


he  poured  out  upon  his  audience  in  all  the  fullness  of  informa¬ 
tion— not  but  he  observed  Swift’s  rule,  ‘  of  giving  every  man  time 
to  take  his  share  in  the  conversation  1 ;  ’  and  when  the  company 
thought  proper  to  engage  him  in  the  general  discussion  of  little 
matters,  no  man  threw  back  the  ball  with  greater  ease  and 
pleasantry. 

He  always  expressed  himself  with  clearness  and  precision,  and 
seldom  made  use  of  an  unnecessary  word — each  had  its  due 
weight,  and  stood  in  its  proper  place.  He  was  sometimes  a  little 
too  tenacious  of  his  own  opinion,  particularly  when  it  was  in 
danger  of  being  wrested  from  him  by  any  of  the  company. 
Here  he  used  to  collect  himself  with  all  his  strength — and  here 
he  shewed  such  skill  and  dexterity  in  defence,  that  he  either 
tired  out  his  adversary,  or  turned  the  laugh  against  him,  by  the 
power  of  his  wit  and  irony 2. 

In  this  place,  it  would  be  omitting  a  very  singular  quality  of 
his,  not  to  speak  of  the  amazing  powers  of  his  memory3.  The 
great  stores  of  learning  which  he  laid  in,  in  his  youth,  were  not 
of  that  cumbrous  and  inactive  quality,  which  we  meet  with  in 
many  who  are  called  great  scholars  ;  for  he  could,  at  all  times, 
draw  bills  upon  this  capital  with  the  greatest  security  of  being 
paid.  When  quotations  were  made  against  him  in  conversation, 
either  by  applying  to  the  context,  he  gave  a  different  turn  to  the 
passage,  or  quoted  from  other  parts  of  the  same  author,  that 
which  was  more  favourable  to  his  own  opinion  : — if  these  failed 
him,  he  would  instantly  call  up  a  whole  phalanx  of  other 
authorities,  by  which  he  bore  down  his  antagonist  with  all  the 
superiority  of  allied  force. 

But  it  is  not  the  readiness  with  which  he  applied  to  different 
authors,  proves  so  much  the  greatness  of  his  memory,  as  the 
extent  to  which  he  could  carry  his  recollection  upon  occasions. 
I  remember  one  day,  in  a  conversation  upon  the  miseries  of  old 
age,  a  gentleman  in  company  observed,  he  always  thought 
Juvenal’s  description  of  them  to  be  rather  too  highly  coloured — 

1  A?ite ,  i.  169.  give  room  by  a  pause  for  any  other 

‘Swift  did  not  claim  the  right  of  speaker.’  Works,  v iii.  225. 
talking  alone  ;  for  it  was  his  rule,  2  Life ,  ii.  100. 

when  he  had  spoken  a  minute,  to  3  lb.  v.  368  ;  ante ,  ii.  85,  87. 


upon 


Published  by  G.  Kearsley. 


167 


upon  which  the  Doctor  replied — ‘  No,  Sir — I  believe  not ;  they 
may  not  all  belong  to  an  individual,  but  they  are  collectively 
true  of  old  age  V  Then  rolling  about  his  head,  as  if  snuffing  up 
his  recollection,  he  suddenly  broke  out 

‘  Ille  humero,  hie  lumbis/  &c . 

down  to  ‘  et  nigra  veste  senescant.’ 

(Satire  x.  227-245.) 

Some  time  previous  to  Dr.  Hawkesworth’s  publication  of  his 
beautiful  Ode  on  Life 1  2,  he  carried  it  down  with  him  to  a  friend’s 
house  in  the  country  to  retouch.  Dr.  Johnson  was  of  this  party  ; 
and  as  Hawkesworth  and  the  Doctor  lived  upon  the  most  inti¬ 
mate  terms 3,  the  former  read  it  to  him  for  his  opinion.  ‘  Why, 
Sir,’  says  Johnson,  ‘I  can’t  well  determine  on  a  first  hearing, 
read  it  again,  second  thoughts  are  best’;  Dr.  Hawkesworth 
complied,  after  which  Dr.  Johnson  read  it  himself,  approved  of 
it  very  highly,  and  returned  it. 

Next  morning  at  breakfast,  the  subject  of  the  poem  being  re¬ 
newed,  Dr.  Johnson,  after  again  expressing  his  approbation  of 
it,  said  he  had  but  one  objection  to  make  to  it,  which  was,  that 
he  doubted  its  originality.  Hawkesworth,  alarmed  at  this, 
challenged  him  to  the  proof ;  when  the  Doctor  repeated  the 
whole  of  the  poem,  with  only  the  omission  of  a  very  few  lines ; 

‘  What  do  you  say  now,  Hawkey?  ’  says  the  Doctor.  ‘  Only  this/ 
replied  the  other,  ‘  that  I  shall  never  repeat  any  thing  I  write 
before  you  again,  for  you  have  a  memory  that  would  convict 
any  author  of  plagiarism  in  any  court  of  literature  in  the  world.’ 

I  have  now  the  poem  before  me,  and  I  find  it  contains  no  less 
than  sixty -eight  lines.  (Page  100.) 

His  life  reflected  the  purity  and  integrity  of  his  writings.  His 
friendships,  as  they  were  generally  formed  on  the  broad  basis  of 
virtue,  were  constant,  active,  and  unshaken.  And  what  rendered 

1  Life,  iii.  337.  the  Life  of  Swift,  speaking  of 

2  Gentleman's  Magazine,  1747,  p.  Hawkesworth,  mentions  ‘the  inti- 

337.  macy  of  our  friendship.’  See  ante , 

3  Johnson  at  the  beginning  of  i.  166. 


them 


Anecdotes  of  Johnson 


1 68 


them  still  more  valuable,  he  knew  and  practised  that  sort  which 
was  most  applicable  to  the  wants  of  his  friends.  To  those  in 
need  he  liberally  opened  his  purse — To  others  he  gave  up  his 
time,  his  interest,  and  his  advice 1 ;  and  having  an  honest  con¬ 
fidence  that  this  last  was  of  some  weight  in  the  world,  he  scarcely 
let  a  proper  opportunity  slip  without  enforcing  it  ;  particularly 
to  young  men,  whom  [sic]  he  hoped  would  remember  what  fell 
from  such  high  authority  ;  even  to  children  he  could  be  playfully 
instructive.  (Page  112.) 

Some  years  since  the  Doctor  coming  up  Fleet-street,  at  about 
two  o’clock  in  the  morning,  he  was  alarmed  with  the  cries  of 
a  person  seemingly  in  great  distress.  He  followed  the  voice 
for  some  time,  when,  by  the  glimmer  of  an  expiring  lamp,  he 
perceived  an  unhappy  female,  almost  naked,  and  perishing  on 
a  truss  of  straw,  who  had  just  strength  enough  to  tell  him, 
‘  she  was  turned  out  by  an  inhuman  landlord  in  that  condition, 
and  to  beg  his  charitable  assistance  not  to  let  her  die  in  the 
street.’  The  Doctor  melted  at  her  story,  desired  her  to  place 
her  confidence  in  God,  for  that  under  him  he  would  be  her 
protector.  He  accordingly  looked  about  for  a  coach  to  put  her 
into ;  but  there  was  none  to  be  had  :  £  his  charity,  however, 
worked  too  strong/  to  be  cooled  by  such  an  accident.  He 
kneeled  down  by  her  side,  raised  her  in  his  arms,  wrapped  his 
great  coat  about  her.  placed  her  on  his  back,  and  in  this  condition 
carried  her  home  to  his  house. 

Next  day  her  disorder  appearing  to  be  venereal,  he  was  ad¬ 
vised  to  abandon  her  ;  but  he  replied,  £  that  may  be  as  much  her 
misfortune  as  her  fault ;  I  am  determined  to  give  her  the  chance 
of  a  reformation’;  he  accordingly  kept  her  in  his  house  above 
thirteen  weeks,  where  she  was  regularly  attended  by  a  physician, 
who  recovered  her. 

The  Doctor,  during  this  time,  learned  more  of  her  story ;  and 
finding  her  to  be  one  of  those  unhappy  women  who  are  impelled 
to  this  miserable  life  more  from  necessity  than  inclination,  he  set 

1  To  Mr.  Thrale  he  wrote  : — ‘The  wanted  is  evidently  impertinent.’ 
advice  that  is  wanted  is  commonly  Letters ,  ii.  162.  For  the  assistance 
unwelcome,  and  that  which  is  not  he  gave  see  ante,  i.  180,  236,  279. 


on 


Published  by  G.  Kearsley. 


169 


on  foot  a  subscription,  and  established  her  in  a  milliner’s  shop  in 
the  country,  where  she  was  living  some  years  ago  in  very  con¬ 
siderable  repute  x.  (Page  24.) 


His  last  advice  to  his  friends  was  upon  this  subject  [the  re¬ 
ligious  duties],  and,  like  a  second  Socrates,  though  under  the 
sentence  of  death,  from  his  infirmities,  their  eternal  welfare  was 
his  principal  theme — To  some  he  enjoy ned  it  with  tears  in  his 
eyes,  reminding  them,  £it  was  the  dying  request  of  a  friend,  who 
had  no  other  way  of  paying  the  large  obligations  he  owed  them 
— but  by  this  advice1 2.’  (Page  1 18.) 

[The  five  following  anecdotes,  attributed  to  Kearsley  by 
Croker  (vol.  x.  p.  99),  are  not  in  my  edition  of  the  Life  of 
Johnson  published  by  him.] 

The  emigration  of  the  Scotch  to  London  being  a  conversation 
between  the  Doctor  and  Foote,  the  latter  said  he  believed  the 
number  of  Scotch  in  London  were  as  great  in  the  former  as  the 
present  reign.  £No,  Sir!’  said  the  Doctor,  ‘you  are  certainly 
wrong  in  your  belief :  but  I  see  how  you’re  deceived  ;  you  can’t 
distinguish  them  now  as  formerly,  for  the  fellows  all  come  here 
breeched  of  late  years  3 *.’ 


‘  Pray,  Doctor,5  said  a  gentleman  to  him,  ‘  is  Mr.  Thrale  a  man 
of  conversation,  or  is  he  only  wise  and  silent  ?  ’  ‘  Why,  Sir,  his 

conversation  does  not  show  the  minute  hand ;  but  he  strikes  the 
hour  very  correctly  V 


On  Johnson’s  return  from  Scotland,  a  particular  friend  of  his 
was  saying,  that  now  he  had  had  a  view  of  the  country,  he  was 
in  hopes  it  would  cure  him  of  many  prejudices  against  that 


1  Life ,  iv.  321. 

2  Ante,  ii.  146,  151. 

3  After  the  Rebellion  of  1745  to 
wear  the  Highland  dress  was  for¬ 
bidden  by  law.  Any  one  wearing  it, 

‘  not  being  a  landed  man,  or  the  son 
of  a  landed  man,’  was,  on  conviction, 

‘  to  be  delivered  over  to  serve  as 
a  soldier.’  The  loyal  Highlanders 


in  the  Duke  of  Cumberland’s  army 
had  been  compelled  in  part  to  adopt 
the  southern  garb.  When  they  passed 
in  review  before  him  he  said : — 
‘  They  look  very  well ;  have  breeches, 
and  are  the  better  for  that.5  Foot¬ 
steps  of  Dr.  Johnson  in  Scotland , 
p.  171. 

4  Ante,  i.  423  ;  Life ,  i.  494. 

nation 


170  Anecdotes  of  Johnson  published  by  G.  Kearsley. 


nation,  particularly  in  respect  to  the  fruits.  ‘  Why,  yes,  Sir,’ 
said  the  Doctor  ;  ‘  I  have  found  out  that  gooseberries  will  grow 
there  against  a  south  wall ;  but  the  skins  are  so  tough,  that  it  is 
death  to  the  man  who  swallows  one  of  them  V 

Being  asked  his  opinion  of  hunting,  he  said,  1  It  was  the  labour 
of  the  savages  of  North  America,  but  the  amusement  of  the 
gentlemen  of  England  */ 

When  Johnson  was  told  of  Mrs.  Thrale’s  marriage  with  Piozzi, 
the  Italian  singer,  he  was  dumb  with  surprise  for  some  moments ; 
at  last,  recovering  himself,  he  exclaimed  with  great  emotion, 
c  Varium  et  mutabile  semper  fcemina3!  ’ 

x  ‘Things  .which  grow  wild  here  the  sloe  to  perfection?’  Life^  ii. 
must  be  cultivated  with  great  care  77. 

in  Scotland.  Pray,  now,  (throwing  2  For  his  fox-hunting  see  ante ,  i. 

himself  back  in  his  chair,  and  287. 

laughing)  are  you  ever  able  to  bring  3  Aeneid,  iv.  569. 


ANECDOTES  AND  REMARKS 

BY  LADY  KNIGHT 1 


♦ 


Mrs.  Williams  was  a  person  extremely  interesting.  She 
had  uncommon  firmness  of  mind,  a  boundless  curiosity2,  re¬ 
tentive  memory,  and  strong  judgment.  She  had  various  powers 
of  pleasing.  Her  personal  afflictions  and  slender  fortune  she 
seemed  to  forget,  when  she  had  the  power  of  doing  an  act  of 
kindness :  she  was  social,  cheerful,  and  active,  in  a  state  of  body 
that  was  truly  deplorable.  Her  regard  to  Dr.  Johnson  was 
formed  with  such  strength  of  judgment  and  firm  esteem,  that 
her  voice  never  hesitated  when  she  repeated  his  maxims,  or 
recited  his  good  deeds ;  though  upon  many  other  occasions  her 
want  of  sight  led  her  to  make  so  much  use  of  her  ear,  as  to 
affect  her  speech.  Mrs.  Williams  was  blind  before  she  was 
acquainted  with  Dr.  Johnson3.  She  had  many  resources,  though 
none  very  great.  With  the  Miss  Wilkinsons  she  generally 
passed  a  part  of  the  year,  and  received  from  them  presents,  and 


1  Published  by  Croker  (vols.  i. 
275  ;  iii.  9 ;  x.  48)  ‘  from  a  paper 
transmitted  by  Lady  Knight  to  Rome 
to  Mr.  Hoole,’  and  printed  in  the 
European  Magazine ,  October,  1799. 

Lady  Knight  was  the  widow  of 
Admiral  Sir  Charles  Knight  and 
mother  of  Cornelia  Knight,  who  had 
the  audacity  to  write  a  continuation 
of  Rasselas,  under  the  name  of 
Dinarbas.  The  two  stories  were 
sometimes  printed  in  one  volume. 

2  Johnson  wrote  on  her  death: — 
‘  Her  acquisitions  were  many  and 
her  curiosity  universal ;  so  that  she 

partook  of  every  conversation.’  Life , 


iv.  239.  ‘  Had  she  had  good  humour 
and  prompt  elocution,  her  universal 
curiosity  and  comprehensive  know¬ 
ledge  would  have  made  her  the  de¬ 
light  of  all  that  knew  her.’  Letters , 
ii.  334.  ‘  Her  curiosity  was  universal, 
her  knowledge  was  very  extensive, 
and  she  sustained  forty  years  of 
misery  with  steady  fortitude.’  Ib. 
P*  336. 

3  According  to  Boswell,  she  made 
his  acquaintance  when  she  came  to 
London  ‘  in  hopes  of  being  cured  of 
a  cataract  in  both  her  eyes,  which 
afterwards  ended  in  total  blindness.’ 
Life ,  i.  232. 


from 


172 


Anecdotes  and  Remarks 


from  the  first  who  died,  a  legacy  of  clothes  and  money.  The 
last  of  them,  Mrs.  Jane,  left  her  an  annual  rent ;  but  from  the 
blundering  manner  of  the  will,  I  fear  she  never  reaped  the 
benefit  of  it.  The  lady  left  money  to  erect  a  hospital  for  ancient 
maids ;  but  the  number  she  had  allotted  being  too  great  for 
the  donation,  the  Doctor  [Johnson]  said,  it  would  better  to 
expunge  the  word  maintain ,  and  put  in  to  starve  such  a  number 
of  old  maids.  They  asked  him  what  name  should  be  given 
it:  he  replied,  ‘Let  it  be  called  Jenny’s  Whim1.’  Lady 
Philips2  made  her  a  small  annual  allowance,  and  some  other 
Welsh  ladies,  to  all  of  whom  she  was  related.  Mrs.  Mon¬ 
tagu,  on  the  death  of  Mr.  Montagu,  settled  upon  her  (by 
deed)  ten  pounds  per  annum 3.  As  near  as  I  can  calculate, 
Mrs.  Williams  had  about  thirty-five  or  forty  pounds  a  year.  The 
furniture  she  used  [in  her  apartment  in  Dr.  Johnson’s  house] 
was  her  own 4 ;  her  expenses  were  small,  tea  and  bread  and  butter 
being  at  least  half  of  her  nourishment.  Sometimes  she  had  a 
servant  or  charwoman  to  do  the  ruder  offices  of  the  house 5 ;  but 
she  was  herself  active  and  industrious.  I  have  frequently  seen 
her  at  work.  Upon  remarking  one  day  her  facility  in  moving 
about  the  house,  searching  into  drawers,  and  finding  books,  with¬ 
out  the  help  of  sight,  ‘  Believe  me  (said  she),  persons  who  cannot 
do  these  common  offices  without  sight,  did  but  little  while  they 
enjoyed  that  blessing.’  Scanty  circumstances,  bad  health,  and 
blindness,  are  surely  a  sufficient  apology  for  her  being  sometimes 
impatient :  her  natural  disposition  was  good,  friendly,  and 
humane. 

As  to  her  poems,  she  many  years  attempted  to  publish 
them :  the  half-crowns  she  had  got  towards  the  publication, 
she  confessed  to  me,  went  for  necessaries,  and  that  the  greatest 


1  ‘  Here  [at  Vauxhall]  we  picked 
up  Lord  Granby,  arrived  very  drunk 
from  Jenny’s  Whim.’  Walpole’s 
Letters ,  ii.  212.  Jenny’s  Whim  was 
a  tavern  at  the  end  of  the  wooden 
bridge  at  Chelsea,  where  Victoria 
Station  now  stands.  Wheatley’s 
London ,  1891,  ii.  305. 

2  Lady  Philipps  of  Picton  Castle. 


Life ,  v.  276. 

3  Letters ,  i.  371,  n.  1  ;  ii.  190. 

4  ‘  She  left  her  little  ’  to  the  Ladies’ 
Charity  School.  Ib.  ii.  334. 

5  Johnson  had  his  man-servant, 
and  a  female-servant,  to  whom  he 
bequeathed  ^100  stock.  Life ,  iv. 
402,  n.  2. 


pain 


by  Lady  Knight. 


i73 


pain  she  ever  felt  was  from  the  appearance  of  defrauding  her 
subscribers1:  ‘but  what  can  I  do  ?  the  Doctor  [Johnson]  always 
puts  me  off  with  “Well,  we’ll  think  about  it;”  and  Gold¬ 
smith  says,  “Leave  it  to  me2.’”  However,  two  of  her  friends 
under  her  directions,  made  a  new  subscription  at  a  crown,  the 
whole  price  of  the  work,  and  in  a  very  little  time  raised  sixty 
pounds.  Mrs.  Carter  was  applied  to  by  Mrs.  Williams’s  desire, 
and  she,  with  the  utmost  activity  and  kindness  procured  a  long 
list  of  names.  At  length  the  work  was  published,  in  which  is 
a  fine  written  but  gloomy  tale  of  Dr.  Johnson3.  The  money 
(150/.)  Mrs.  Williams  had  various  uses  for,  and  a  part  of  it  was 
funded  4. 

Mrs.  Williams’s  account  of  Johnson’s  wife  was,  that  she  had 
a  good  understanding  and  great  sensibility,  but  inclined  to  be 
satirical.  Her  first  husband  died  insolvent 5 ;  her  sons  were 
much  disgusted  with  her  for  her  second  marriage ;  perhaps 
because  they,  being  struggling  to  get  advanced  in  life,  were 
mortified  to  think  she  had  allied  herself  to  a  man  who  had  not 
any  visible  means  of  being  useful  to  them.  However,  she 
always  retained  her  affection  for  them.  While  they  resided  in 
Gough  Court6,  her  son,  the  officer7,  knocked  at  the  door,  and 
asked  the  maid  if  her  mistress  was  at  home?  She  answered, 


1  In  the  Gentleman' s  Magazine 
for  September,  1750,  p.  432,  pro¬ 
posals  were  issued  for  printing  her 
Essays  in  Verse  a?ui  Prose  by  sub¬ 
scription.  The  price  was  to  be  five 
shillings,  of  which  half  was  to  be  paid 
on  subscribing.  In  1759  Johnson 
was  signing  ‘  receipts  with  her  name 
for  subscribers.’  Letters ,  i.  87.  The 
book  was  not  published  till  1766. 
Life ,  ii;  25. 

2  In  1763  Goldsmith  ‘went  with 
Johnson,  strutting  away,’  from  the 
Mitre,  and  calling  out  to  Boswell, 
‘  I  go  to  Miss  Williams.’  Life ,  i. 

421. 

3  The  Fountains.  Ib.  ii.  26. 

4  In  1756  Garrick,  at  Johnson’s 

desire,  gave  her  a  benefit-night  at 


his  theatre,  by  which  she  got  £200. 
Ib.  i.  393,  n.  1  ;  Letters ,  i.  53. 

Miss  Hawkins,  with  a  foolish  inso¬ 
lence  unrivalled  even  by  her  father’s, 
writes  ( Memoirs ,  i.  152): — ‘Miss 
Williams  being  a  gentlewoman,  con¬ 
ferred  on  her  protector  the  character 
of  gentleman.’  See  ante ,  ii.  141,  for 
Miss  Hawkins’s  description  of  her 
dress. 

5  If  he  died  insolvent  ‘  her  settle¬ 
ment  was  secured.’  Life ,  i.  95, 
n.  3. 

6  Gough  Square. 

7  A  captain  in  the  navy,  who  left 
his  sister  a  fortune  of  ,£10,000.  Life , 
ii.  462.  His  name  was  Jarvis  (ib.  i. 
94),  given  him,  no  doubt,  after  his 
mother’s  family. 


‘Yes, 


174 


Anecdotes  and  Remarks 


‘Yes,  Sir,  but  she  is  sick  in  bed.’  ‘O!’  says  he,  ‘if  it  is  so, 
tell  her  that  her  son  Jervas  [sic]  called  to  know  how  she  did;’ 
and  was  going  away.  The  maid  begged  she  might  run  up  to 
tell  her  mistress,  and,  without  attending  his  answer,  left  him. 
Mrs.  Johnson,  enraptured  to  hear  her  son  was  below,  desired  the 
maid  to  tell  him  she  longed  to  embrace  him.  When  the  maid 
descended,  the  gentleman  was  gone,  and  poor  Mrs.  Johnson 
was  much  agitated  by  the  adventure :  it  was  the  only  time 
he  ever  made  an  effort  to  see  her.  Dr.  Johnson  did  all  he 
could  to  console  his  wife ;  but  told  Mrs.  Williams,  ‘  Her  son 
is  uniformly  undutiful;  so  I  conclude,  like  many  other  sober 
men,  he  might  once  in  his  life  be  drunk,  and  in  that  fit  nature 
got  the  better  of  his  pride.’ 

Mrs.  Williams  was  never  otherwise  dependent  on  Dr.  Johnson, 
than  in  that  sort  of  association,  which  is  little  known  in  the 
great  world.  They  both  had  much  to  struggle  through ;  and 
I  verily  believe,  that  whichever  held  the  purse,  the  other  partook 
what  want  required x.  She  was,  in  respect  to  morals,  more  rigid 
than  modern  politeness  admits ;  for  she  abhorred  vice,  and 
was  not  sparing  of  anger  against  those  who  threw  young  folks 
into  temptation.  Her  ideas  were  very  just  in  respect  to  the 
improvement  of  the  mind,  and  her  own  was  well  stored.  I  have 
several  of  her  letters :  they  are  all  written  with  great  good  sense 
and  simplicity,  and  with  a  tenderness  and  affection,  that  far 
excel  all  that  is  called  politeness  and  elegance.  I  have  been 
favoured  with  her  company  some  weeks  at  different  times,  and 
always  found  her  temper  equal2,  and  her  conversation  lively. 
I  never  passed  hours  with  more  pleasure  than  when  I  heard 
her  and  Dr.  Johnson  talk  of  the  persons  they  valued,  or  upon 
subjects  in  which  they  were  much  interested.  One  night  I 
remember  Mrs.  Williams  was  giving  an  account  of  the  Wilkin¬ 
sons  being  at  Paris,  and  having  had  consigned  to  their  care 


1  Except  during  the  six  years  in 
which  he  was  living  in  chambers 
(1759-65)  he  gave  her  an  apartment 
(probably  two  rooms)  in  his  own 
house  from  1752  till  her  death  in 
1783.  It  is  most  unlikely  that  he 


ever  drew  on  her  purse.  For  the 
last  twenty-one  years  he  was  never 
in  need,  and  at  the  time  of  his 
poverty  they  were  not  living  in  the 
same  house. 

2  Ante ,  ii.  141. 


the 


by  Lady  Knight. 


!75 


the  letters  of  Lady  Wortley  Montagu,  on  which  they  had 
bestowed  great  praise.  The  Doctor  said,  £  Why,  Madam,  there 
might  be  great  charms  to  them  in  being  intrusted  with  honour¬ 
able  letters ;  but  those  who  know  better  of  the  world,  would 
have  rather  possessed  two  pages  of  true  history1.’  One  day 
that  he  came  to  my  house  to  meet  many  others,  we  told  him 
that  we  had  arranged  our  party  to  go  to  Westminster  Abbey, 
would  not  he  go  with  us  ?  ‘  No,’  he  replied  ;  ‘  not  while  I  can  keep 
out2.’  Upon  our  saying,  that  the  friends  of  a  lady  had  been 
in  great  fear  lest  she  should  make  a  certain  match  for  herself, 
he  said,  4  We  that  are  his  friends  have  had  great  fears  for  him.’ 
I  talked  to  Mrs.  Thrale  much  of  dear  Mrs.  Williams.  She  said 
she  was  highly  born ;  that  she  was  very  nearly  related  to 
a  Welsh  peer;  but  that,  though  Dr.  Johnson  had  always  pressed 
her  to  be  acquainted  with  her,  yet  she  could  not ;  she  was  afraid 
of  her 3.  I  named  her  virtues ;  she  seemed  to  hear  me  as  if 
I  had  spoken  of  a  newly  discovered  country 4. 

I  think  the  character  of  Dr.  Johnson  can  never  be  better 
summed  up  than  in  his  own  words  in  Rasselas ,  chapter  xlii 5. 


1  Horace  Walpole  wrote  to  Lady 
Craven  on  Jan.  2,  1787  ( Letters ,  ix. 
87) : — ‘  I  am  sorry  to  hear,  Madam, 
that  by  your  account  Lady  Mary 
Wortley  was  not  so  accurate  and 
faithful  as  modem  travellers.  ...  As 
you  rival  her  in  poetic  talents,  I  had 
rather  you  would  employ  them  to  cele¬ 
brate  her  for  her  nostrum  [inocula¬ 
tion!  than  detect  her  for  romancing.’ 

2  For  his  visit  to  the  Abbey  with 
Goldsmith  see  Life ,  ii.  238,  and  for 
the  satisfaction  he  felt  on  being  told 
that  he  would  be  buried  there  see 
ib.  iv.  419. 

3  Johnson  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale 
from  Lichfield  in  1775  : — ‘  Mrs. 
Williams  wrote  me  word  that  you 
had  honoured  her  with  a  visit,  and 
behaved  lovely .’  Letters,  i.  360. 

4  In  spite  of  all  the  evidence  of 
her  ‘  valuable  qualities,’  and  of  ‘  the 

blank  that  her  departure  left  in  John¬ 


son’s  house’  {Life,  iv.  235,  239), 
Macaulay  includes  her  in  the  ‘  crowd 
of  wretched  old  creatures  who  could 
find  no  other  asylum  ’  than  his 
house  ;  w’hose  1  peevishness  and 
ingratitude  could  not  weary  out  his 
benevolence.’  Essays,  ed.  1843,  i. 
390. 

It  was  not  till  1778  that  discord 
was  caused  by  his  taking  in  three 
more  poor  women.  Life,  iii.  222. 
Towards  the  end  of  Miss  Williams’ 
life  her  illness  increased  her  peevish¬ 
ness.  Lb.  iii.  128. 

5  It  is  doubtless  to  chapter  xl 
that  she  refers,  where  the  astronomer 
is  thus  described  : — ‘  His  compre¬ 
hension  is  vast,  his  memory  capa¬ 
cious  and  retentive,  his  discourse  is 
methodical,  and  his  expression  clear. 
His  integrity  and  benevolence  are 
equal  to  his  learning.  His  deepest 
researches  and  most  favourite  studies 

He 


176  Anecdotes  and  Remarks  by  Lady  Knight. 


He  was  master  of  an  infinite  deal  of  wit,  which  proceeded  from 
depth  of  thought,  and  of  a  humour  which  he  used  sometimes 
to  take  off  from  the  asperity  of  reproof.  Though  he  did 
frequently  utter  very  sportive  things,  which  might  be  said  to 
be  playing  upon  the  folly  of  some  of  his  companions,  and 
though  he  never  said  one  that  could  disgrace  him,  yet  I  think, 
now  that  he  is  no  more,  the  care  should  be  to  prove  his  steady 
uniformity  in  wisdom,  virtue,  and  religion.  His  political  prin¬ 
ciples  ran  high,  both  in  church  and  state :  he  wished  power  to 
the  king  and  to  the  heads  of  the  church,  as  the  laws  of  England 
have  established;  but  I  know  he  disliked  absolute  power1,  and 
I  am  very  sure  of  his  disapprobation  of  the  doctrines  of  the 
church  of  Rome ;  because,  about  three  weeks  before  we  came 
abroad,  he  said  to  my  Cornelia,  ‘You  are  going  where  the 
ostentatious  pomp  of  church  ceremonies  attracts  the  imagi¬ 
nation  ;  but,  if  they  want  to  persuade  you  to  change  your 
religion,  you  must  remember,  that,  by  increasing  your  faith, 
you  may  be  persuaded  to  become  a  Turk2.5  If  these  were  not 
the  words,  I  have  kept  up  to  the  express  meaning. 


are  willingly  interrupted  for  any 
opportunity  of  doing  good  by  his 
counsel  or  his  riches.  To  his  closest 
retreat,  in  his  most  busy  moments, 
all  are  admitted  that  want  his  assist¬ 
ance: — “For  though  I  exclude  idle¬ 
ness  and  pleasure,  I  will  never,”  says 
he,  “  bar  my  doors  against  charity. 
To  man  is  permitted  the  contempla¬ 
tion  of  the  skies,  but  the  practice  of 
virtue  is  commanded.”  ’  Johnson 
was  also  likened  to  Imlac,  the  man 
of  learning.  Life ,  ii.  1 19,  n.  1; 
iii.  6.  He  describes  himself  also  in 
chapter  xlv. 


1  ‘  When  I  say  that  all  govern¬ 
ments  are  alike,  I  consider  that  in  no 
government  power  can  be  abused 
long.  Mankind  will  not  bear  it.  If 
a  sovereign  oppresses  his  people  to 
a  great  degree,  they  will  rise  and  cut 
off  his  head.  There  is  a  remedy  in 
human  nature  against  tyranny,  that 
will  keep  us  safe  under  every  form  of 
government.’  Life ,  ii.  170. 

2  See  Letters ,  i.  147,  for  the  advice 
he  gave  to  F.  A.  Barnard,  the  King’s 
Librarian,  when  he  was  going  to 
Italy,  and  ante,  i.  210. 


ANECDOTES  BY  HANNAH  MORE1 


♦ » 

[‘  Hannah  More  visited  London  in  1773  or  I774> ln  company 
with  two  of  her  sisters  ;  her  introduction  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Garrick 
took  place  in  about  a  week  after  her  arrival.  It  was  afterwards 
his  delight  to  introduce  his  new  friend  to  the  best  and  most 
gifted  society.’  Memoirs ,  i.  47. 

In  her  childhood  she  had  been  wont  ‘to  make  a  carriage  of 
a  chair,  and  then  to  call  her  sisters  to  ride  with  her  to  London  to 
see  bishops  and  booksellers.’  Ib.  i.  14. 

She  was  born  in  1745  ten  months  before  the  Young  Pretender 
invaded  England,  and  died  in  1833,  the  year  after  the  great 
Reform  Bill  was  passed. 

‘  Her  nurse,  a  pious  old  woman,  had  lived  in  the  family  of 
Dryden,  whose  son  she  had  attended  in  his  last  illness,  and  the 
inquisitive  mind  of  the  little  Hannah  was  continually  prompting 
her  to  ask  for  stories  about  the  poet  Dryden.’  Ib.  i.  11.  It 
must  have  been  Dryden’s  third  son,  Erasmus  Henry,  whom  the 
old  woman  nursed.  He  died  in  1710,  nine  years  after  his  father. 
Scott’s  Life  of  Dryden,  ed.  1834,  p.  396. 

When  Macaulay  was  six  years  old  Hannah  More  wrote  to 
him : — ‘  Though  you  are  a  little  boy  now,  you  will  one  day,  if 
it  please  God,  be  a  man ;  but  long  before  you  are  a  man  I  hope 
you  will  be  a  scholar.  I  therefore  wish  you  to  purchase  such 
books  as  will  be  useful  and  agreeable  to  you  then,  and  that 
you  employ  this  very  small  sum  in  laying  a  little  tiny  corner¬ 
stone  for  your  future  library.’  A  year  or  two  afterwards  she 
wrote  : — ‘You  must  go  to  Hatchard’s  and  choose  another  book. 
I  think  we  have  nearly  exhausted  the  Epics.  What  say  you 

1  From  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  More ,  by  William  Roberts,  Esq. 
Correspondence  of  Mrs.  Hamiah  4  vols.  1834. 

VOL.  II.  N 


to 


178 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


to  a  little  good  prose?  Johnson’s  Hebrides  or  Walton’s  Lives,’ 
&c.  Trevelyan’s  Macaulay ,  ed.  1877,  i.  35. 

Macaulay  wrote  to  the  editor  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  in 
1837: — ‘Hannah  More  was  exactly  the  very  last  person  in  the 
world  about  whom  I  should  choose  to  write  a  critique.  She 
was  a  very  kind  friend  to  me  from  childhood.  Her  notice  first 
called  out  my  literary  tastes.  Her  presents  laid  the  foundation 
of  my  library.  She  was  to  me  what  Ninon  was  to  Voltaire, — 
begging  her  pardon  for  comparing  her  to  a  strumpet,  and  yours 
for  comparing  myself  to  a  great  man.  She  really  was  a 
second  mother  to  me.  I  have  a  real  affection  for  her  memory. 
I,  therefore,  could  not  write  about  her,  unless  I  wrote  in  her 
praise  ;  and  all  the  praise  which  I  could  give  to  her  writings, 
even  after  straining  my  conscience  in  her  favour,  would  be  far 
indeed  from  satisfying  any  of  her  admirers.  I  will  try  my  hand 
on  Temple  and  on  Lord  Clive.’  Macvey  Napier  Cor  res.,  p.  192. 

Macaulay’s  sister  (afterwards  Lady  Trevelyan)  was  christened 
Hannah  More.  He  wrote  to  her  when  he  was  reviewing  Croker’s 
Boswell'. — ‘The  lady  whom  Johnson  abused  for  flattering  him 
was  certainly,  according  to  Croker,  Hannah  More  [Life,  iii.  293]. 
Another  ill-natured  sentence  about  a  Bath  lady  whom  Johnson 
called  “  empty-headed  ”  is  also  applied  to  your  godtnother.’ 
Trevelyan’s  Macaulay ,  ed.  1877,  i.  231.  For  Croker’s  assertion 
that  the  Bath  lady  [Life,  iii.  48)  was  Hannah  More  there  was  no 
foundation.  Her  Memoirs  published  three  years  later  than  his 
Boswell  show  that  she  was  in  London  when  this  epithet  was 
applied  by  Johnson  to  ‘  a  lady  then  in  Bath.’  ‘  I  find,’  she  wrote 
to  her  sister,  ‘  that  Mr.  Boswell  called  upon  you  at  Bristol  with 
Dr.  Johnson.’  Post,  p.  185,  n. 

Nearly  fifty  years  after  she  first  met  Johnson,  De  Quincey 
described  her  conversation  as  ‘  brilliant  and  instructive.’  De 
Quincey’s  Works,  ed.  1872,  xvi.  504.] 

The  desire  Hannah  More  had  long  felt  to  see  Dr.  Johnson, 
was  speedily  gratified.  Her  first  introduction  to  him  took  place 
at  the  house  of  Sit*  Joshua  Reynolds,  who  prepared  her.  as  he 
handed  her  upstairs,  for  the  possibility  of  his  being  in  one  of 
his  moods  of  sadness  and  silence. 


She 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


179 


She  was  surprised  at  his  coming  to  meet  her  as  she  entered 
the  room,  with  good  humour  in  his  countenance,  and  a  macaw 
of  Sir  Joshua’s  in  his  hand1;  and  still  more,  at  his  accosting 
her  with  a  verse  from  a  Morning  Hymn  which  she  had  written 
at  the  desire  of  Sir  James  Stonehouse2.  In  the  same  pleasant 
humour  he  continued  the  whole  of  the  evening3.  An  extract 
from  the  letters  of  one  of  her  sprightly  sisters,  to  the  family 
at  home,  will  afford  the  best  picture  of  the  intercourse  and 
scenes  in  which  Hannah  was  now  beginning  to  bear  a  part. 
Memoir s,  i.  48. 

London,  1774. 

‘We  have  paid  another  visit  to  Miss  Reynolds.  She  had 
sent  to  engage  Dr.  Percy  (Percy’s  collection4 — now  you  know 
him,)  quite  a  sprightly  modern,  instead  of  a  rusty  antique,  as 


1  Sir  Joshua,  says  Northcote,  in¬ 
troduced  this  macaw  into  several  of 
his  pictures.  One  of  the  house¬ 
maids,  whose  portrait  Northcote 
painted,  was  looked  upon  by  the 
bird  as  his  enemy.  When  he  saw 
the  likeness  ‘he  quickly  spread  his 
wings,  and  in  great  fury  ran  to  it, 
and  stretched  himself  up  to  bite  at 
the  face.’  He  would  do  this  whenever 
he  saw  the  picture,  and  did  it  ‘  in 
the  presence  of  Edmund  Burke, 
Dr.  Johnson,  and  Dr.  Goldsmith.’ 
Northcote’s  Reynolds ,  i.  252. 

2  A  physician  of  Northampton, 
who  settled  in  Bristol  and  entered 
the  church.  Memoirs  of  H.  More , 
i.  30.  ‘  My  counsellor,  physician  and 
divine,’  she  calls  him ;  ‘  who  first 
awakened  me  to  some  sense  of  re¬ 
ligious  things.’  Ib.  iii.  191. 

3  Nevertheless,  if  we  can  trust 
Malone’s  story,  it  was  on  this  even¬ 
ing  that  he  administered  to  her  a 
most  severe  rebuke.  ‘  She  very  soon 
began  to  pay  her  court  to  him  in  the 
most  fulsome  strain.  “  Spare  me, 
I  beseech  you,  dear  Madam,”  was 
his  reply.  She  still  laid  it  on. 
“  Pray,  Madam,  let  us  have  no  more 


of  this,”  he  rejoined.  Not  paying 
any  attention  to  these  warnings,  she 
continued  still  her  eulogy.  At  length, 
provoked  by  this  indelicate  and  vain 
obtrusion  of  compliments,  he  ex¬ 
claimed,  “Dearest  Lady,  consider 
with  yourself  what  your  flattery  is 
worth,  before  you  bestow  it  so 
freely.”  ’  Life,  iv.  341 ;  ante,  i.  273. 

That  this  rebuke  was  administered 
is  beyond  a  doubt  (see  Life,  iv.  341, 
n.  6) ;  that  it  was  administered  this 
evening  seems  unlikely. 

In  1780,  describing  an  evening 
with  him  at  Miss  Reynold’s,  she 
says  {post,  p.  189):  —  ‘As  usual, 
he  laughed  when  I  flattered  him.’ 
It  was  to  Miss  Reynolds  that  John¬ 
son,  two  years  earlier,  said,  ‘  I  was 
obliged  to  speak,  to  let  her  [Miss 
More]  know  that  I  desired  she  would 
not  flatter  me  so  much.’  Life,  iii.  293. 

Nearly  forty  years  later,  writing 
of  Addison  and  Johnson,  she  said : — 

‘  I  love  and  honour  those  two  men 
in  a  very  high  degree,  though  the 
term  love  rather  belongs  to  Addison, 
honour  to  Johnson.’  Memoirs ,  iii.  340. 

4  She  refers  to  the  Reliques  of 
Ancient  English  Poetry. 

2  I  expected 


i8o 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More . 


I  expected  He  was  no  sooner  gone,  than  the  most  amiable 
and  obliging  of  women  (Miss  Reynolds,)  ordered  the  coach,  to 
take  us  to  Dr.  Johnson’s  very  own  house ;  yes,  Abyssinia’s 
Johnson!  Dictionary  Johnson !  Rambler’s,  Idler’s,  and  Irene’s 
Johnson!  Can  you  picture  to  yourselves  the  palpitation  of  our 
hearts  as  we  approached  his  mansion.  The  conversation  turned 
upon  a  new  work  of  his,  just  going  to  the  press,  (the  Tour  to 
the  Hebrides1  2,)  and  his  old  friend  Richardson 3.  Mrs.  Williams, 
the  blind  poet4,  who  lives  with  him,  was  introduced  to  us. 
She  is  engaging  in  her  manners ;  her  conversation  lively  and 
entertaining.  Miss  Reynolds  told  the  doctor  of  all  our  rapturous 
exclamations  on  the  road.  He  shook  his  scientific  head  at 
Hannah,  and  said,  “  She  was  a  silly  thing T  When  our  visit  was 
ended,  he  called  for  his  hat,  (as  it  rained)  to  attend  us  down 
a  very  long  entry  to  our  coach,  and  not  Rasselas  could  have 
acquitted  himself  more  en  cavalier 5.  We  are  engaged  with  him 
at  Sir  Joshua’s,  Wednesday  evening.  What  do  you  think  of  us? 

I  forgot  to  mention,  that  not  finding  Johnson  in  his  little 
parlour  when  we  came  in,  Hannah  seated  herself  in  his  great 
chair,  hoping  to  catch  a  little  ray  of  his  genius  ;  when  he  heard 
it,  he  laughed  heartily,  and  told  her  it  was  a  chair  on  which 
he  never  sat 6.  He  said  it  reminded  him  of  Boswell  and  himself 
when  they  stopt  a  night  at  the  spot  (as  they  imagined)  where 
the  Weird  Sisters  appeared  to  Macbeth  :  the  idea  so  worked 
upon  their  enthusiasm,  that  it  quite  deprived  them  of  rest : 
however  they  learnt,  the  next  morning,  to  their  mortification, 


1  Miss  Burney  wrote  of  him 
seventeen  years  later : — ‘  The  Bishop 
is  perfectly  easy  and  unassuming, 
very  communicative,  and  though  not 
very  entertaining  because  too  prolix, 
he  is  otherwise  intelligent  and  of 
good  conversation.’  Mme.  D’Ar- 
blay’s  Diary,  v.  256. 

2  Johnson  wrote  on  June  21, 
1774: — ‘Yesterday  I  put  the  first 
sheets  of  the  Journey  to  the  Hebrides 
to  the  press.’  Life ,  ii.  278. 

3  The  author  of  Clarissa — one  of 

the  very  few  men  whom  Johnson 


‘  sought  after.’  Ib,  iii.  314. 

4  She  published  in  1766  a  volume 
of  Miscellanies.  Most  of  her  poems 
were  corrected  by  Johnson.  Lb.  ii. 
25 ;  a?ite ,  i.  403  ;  ii.  172. 

5  He  was  living  in  Johnson’s 
Court  as  late  as  May,  1775,  but  by 
March,  1776,  had  removed  to  Bolt 
Court.  Life ,  ii.  375,  427.  For  his 
conducting  Madame  de  Boufflers  to 
her  coach  and  ‘  showing  himself  a 
man  of  gallantry,’  see  ib.  ii.  405,  and 
post,  p.  260. 

6  Life ,  iv.  232,  n.  1. 


that 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


181 


that  they  had  been  deceived,  and  were  quite  in  another  part 
of  the  country1.’ 

Johnson  afterwards  mentioned  to  Miss  Reynolds  how  much 
he  had  been  touched  with  the  enthusiasm  which  was  visible 
in  the  whole  manner  of  the  young  authoress,  which  was  evidently 
genuine  and  unaffected.  Memoirs ,  i.  49. 

London,  1775. 

I  had  yesterday  the  pleasure  of  dining  in  Hill  Street,  Berkeley 
Square,  at  a  certain  Mrs.  Montagu’s,  a  name  not  totally  obscure 2. 
The  party  consisted  of  herself,  Mrs.  Carter3,  Dr.  Johnson, 
Solander4,  and  Matty5,  Mrs.  Boscawen6,  Miss  Reynolds,  and 
Sir  Joshua,  (the  idol  of  every  company  ;)  some  other  persons  of 
high  rank  and  less  wit,  and  your  humble  servant.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  Montagu  received  me  with  the  most  encouraging  kindness ; 
she  is  not  only  the  finest  genius,  but  the  finest  lady  I  ever  saw : 
she  lives  in  the  highest  style  of  magnificence  ;  her  apartments 


1  There  seems  some  mistake  in 
her  narrative.  Boswell  recorded  in 
his  Journal : — ‘ In  the  afternoon  we 
drove  over  the  very  heath  where 
Macbeth  met  the  witches  according 
to  tradition. .  .  .  We  got  to  Fores 
at  night.’  Ib.  v.  115.  Johnson 
says  : — ‘  We  went  forwards  the  same 
day  to  Fores,  the  town  to  which 
Macbeth  was  travelling  when  he 
met  the  weird  sisters  in  his  way. 
This  to  an  Englishman  is  classick 
ground.  Our  imaginations  were 
heated,  and  our  thoughts  recalled 
to  their  old  amusements.’  Works , 
ix.  21. 

2  Mrs.  Montagu  was  not  yet  in 
her  new  house  in  Portman  Square, 
from  which  Johnson  and  Boswell 
were  a  few  years  later  excluded  on 
account  of  the  offence  given  by 
the  Life  of  Lyttelton.  Life ,  iv.  64. 
H.  More  writes  of  it  in  1783  : — ‘  To 
all  the  magnificence  of  a  very  superb 
London  house  is  added  the  scenery 
of  a  country  retirement.’  Memoirs, 
i.  241.  In  1784,  after  spending  a 


fortnight  with  Mrs.  Montagu,  she 
writes  : — ‘  One  may  say  of  her,  what 
Johnson  has  said  of  somebody  else, 
that  “  she  never  opens  her  mouth 
but  to  say  something .”  ’  Lb.  i.  329. 

3  Known  as  ‘  the  learned  Mrs. 
Carter.’  Life,  i.  122,  n.  4. 

‘  Her  calm  orderly  mind,’  wrote  H. 
More  ( Memoirs ,  iii.  306),  £  dreaded 
nothing  so  much  as  irregularity ;  she 
was  therefore  most  strictly  high 
church,  and  most  scrupulously  for¬ 
bore  reading  any  book,  however 
sound  or  sober,  which  proceeded 
from  any  other  quarter.  She  would 
on  no  account  have  read  Doddridge 
or  Pascal.’ 

4  Ante ,  i.  280. 

5  Either  Dr.  Matthew  Maty  ( Lije , 
i.  284),  or  his  son  Paul  Henry  Maty 
{ante,  i.  237). 

6  She  wrote  to  Hannah  More  five 
years  later  : — ‘  I  have  claims  upon 
Dr.  Johnson  ;  but  as  he  never  knows 
me  when  he  meets  me,  they  are  all 
stifled  in  the  cradle.’  H.  More’s 
Memoirs,  i.  191.  See  also  Life,  iii.  331. 

and 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


182 


and  table  are  in  the  most  splendid  taste ;  but  what  baubles  are 
these  when  speaking  of  a  Montagu !  her  form  (for  she  has  no 
body)  is  delicate  even  to  fragility  ;  her  countenance  the  most 
animated  in  the  world  ;  the  sprightly  vivacity  of  fifteen,  with 
the  judgment  and  experience  of  a  Nestor1.  .  .  .  Dr.  Johnson 
asked  me  how  I  liked  the  new  tragedy  of  Braganza2.  I  was 
afraid  to  speak  before  them  all,  as  I  knew  a  diversity  of 
opinion  prevailed  among  the  company ;  however,  as  I  thought 
it  a  less  evil  to  dissent  from  the  opinion  of  a  fellow  creature, 
than  to  tell  a  falsity,  I  ventured  to  give  my  sentiments ;  and 
was  satisfied  with  Johnson’s  answering,  ‘  You  are  right,  madam.’ 

[From  Miss  Sarah  More  to  one  of  her  sisters.] 

London,  1775. 

Tuesday  evening  we  drank  tea  at  Sir  Joshua’s  with  Dr.  John¬ 
son.  Hannah  is  certainly  a  great  favourite.  She  was  placed 
next  him,  and  they  had  the  entire  conversation  to  themselves. 
They  were  both  in  remarkably  high  spirits  ;  it  was  certainly  her 
lucky  night !  I  never  heard  her  say  so  many  good  things.  The 
old  genius  was  extremely  jocular,  and  the  young  one  very 
pleasant.  You  would  have  imagined  we  had  been  at  some 
comedy  had  you  heard  our  peals  of  laughter.  They,  indeed, 
tried  which  could  ‘  pepper  the  highest  V  and  it  is  not  clear  to  me 
that  the  lexicographer  was  really  the  highest  seasoner.  Memoir s, 
i.  52. 

[Miss  H.  More  to  one  of  her  sisters.] 

London,  177  6. 

Just  returned  from  spending  one  of  the  most  agreeable  days 
of  my  life,  with  the  female  Maecenas  of  Hill  Street  ;  she  engaged 
me  five  or  six  days  ago  to  dine  with  her,  and  had  assembled 

myself  so  young  again.’  Ib.  vi.  190  ; 
ante ,  ii.  46. 

3  ‘  Till  his  relish  grown  callous, 
almost  to  disease, 

Who  peppered  the  highest  was 
surest  to  please.’ 

Goldsmith’s  Retaliation. 
It  seems  improbable  that  this  ‘pep¬ 
pering’  could  have  followed  John¬ 
son’s  rebuke. 


1  For  ‘  her  trymg  for  this  same  air 
and  manner,’  see  Life ,  iii.  244,  n.  2. 

2  By  Robert  Jephson.  Horace 
Walpole  wrote  the  Prologue.  Wal¬ 
pole’s  Letters ,  i.  Preface,  p.  77.  On 
Feb.  18  of  this  year  he  wrote: — 
‘  Braga?iza  was  acted  last  night  with 
prodigious  success  ...  I  went  to  the 
rehearsal  with  all  the  eagerness  of 
eighteen,  and  was  delighted  to  find 


half 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


183 


half  the  wits  of  the  age.  The  only  fault  that  charming  woman 
has,  is,  that  she  is  fond  of  collecting  too  many  of  them  together 
at  one  time z.  There  were  nineteen  persons  assembled  at  dinner, 
but  after  the  repast,  she  has  a  method  of  dividing  her  guests,  or 
rather  letting  them  assort  themselves  into  little  groups  of  five 
or  six  each.  I  spent  my  time  in  going  from  one  to  the  other  of 
these  little  societies,  as  I  happened  more  or  less  to  like  the 
subjects  they  were  discussing.  Mrs.  Scott1 2,  Mrs.  Montagu’s 
sister,  a  very  good  writer,  Mrs.  Carter,  Mrs.  Barbauld  3,  and 
a  man  of  letters,  whose  name  I  have  forgotten,  made  up  one  of 
these  little  parties.  When  we  had  canvassed  two  or  three  sub¬ 
jects,  I  stole  off  and  joined  in  with  the  next  group,  which  was 
composed  of  Mrs.  Montagu,  Dr.  Johnson,  the  Provost  of  Dublin4, 
and  two  other  ingenious  men.  In  this  party  there  was  a  diversity 
of  opinions,  which  produced  a  great  deal  of  good  argument  and 
reasoning.  There  were  several  other  groups  less  interesting  to 
me,  as  they  were  more  composed  of  rank  than  talent,  and  it  was 
amusing  to  see  how  the  people  of  sentiment  singled  out  each 
other,  and  how  the  fine  ladies  and  pretty  gentlemen  naturally 
slid  into  each  other’s  society. 


1  Miss  Burney  describes  ‘  a  very 
fine  public  breakfast 5  Mrs.  Mon¬ 
tagu  gave,  at  which  there  were  ‘  not 
fewer  than  four  or  five  hundred 
people.  It  was  like  a  full  Ranelagh 
by  daylight.’  Mme.  D’Arblay’s 
Diary ,  v.  302. 

For  ‘public  dinners,’  see  Life ,  iv. 
367,  n.  3.  Johnson  describes  how 
Swift  ‘  opened  his  house  by  a  publick 
table  two  days  a  week.’  Works ,  viii. 
208. 

2  The  sister  of  Mrs.  Montagu, 
and  the  wife  of  that  George  Lewis 
Scott,  who  once  ‘  with  Johnson  and 
Hercules  made  out  the  triumvirate 
comically  enough.’  Ante ,  i.  180. 

3  Ante,  i.  157,  and  Life,  ii.  408. 

Mrs.  Barbauld,  reading  Boswell’s 

Life  of  fohnson  the  month  it  came 
out,  writes : — ‘  It  is  like  going  to 
Ranelagh ;  you  meet  all  your  ac¬ 
quaintance  ;  but  it  is  a  base  and 


a  mean  thing  to  bring  thus  every 
idle  word  into  judgment — the  judg¬ 
ment  of  the  public.’  Barbauld’s 
Works ,  ed.  1825,  ii.  158.  In  the 
same  year  she  wrote  : — ‘  Mrs.  Mon¬ 
tagu,  who  entertains  all  the  aris¬ 
tocrats  [the  French  fugitives],  had 
invited  a  Marchioness  of  Boufflers  and 
her  daughter  to  dinner.  After  making 
her  wait  till  six  the  marchioness 
came,  and  made  an  apology  for  her 
daughter,  that  just  as  she  was  going 
to  dress  she  was  seized  with  a  degout 
7nomentanee  [sic]  du  nionde,  and 
could  not  wait  on  her.’  Ib.  p.  139. 

4  Dr.  John  Hely  Hutchinson.  On 
his  appointment  Topham  Beauclerk 
wrote  to  Lord  Charlemont :  —  ‘I 
agree  with  you  that  there  never  was 
a  more  scandalous  thing  than  making 
the  man  provost  that  is  made.’  Char - 
lemont  Papers,  Hist.  MSS.  Comm., 
1891,  p.  231. 


I  had 


184 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More . 


I  had  the  happiness  to  carry  Dr.  Johnson  home  from  Hill 
Street,  though  Mrs.  Montagu  publicly  declared  she  did  not  think 
it  prudent  to  trust  us  together,  with  such  a  declared  affection  on 
both  sides.  She  said  she  was  afraid  of  a  Scotch  elopement.  He 
has  invited  himself  to  drink  tea  with  us  to-morrow,  that  we  may 
read  Sir  Eldred  together.  I  shall  not  tell  you  what  he  said  of 
it,  but  to  me  the  best  part  of  his  flattery  was,  that  he  repeats  all 
the  best  stanzas  by  heart,  with  the  energy,  though  not  with  the 
grace  of  a  Garrick.  Memoirs ,  i.  63. 

London,  1776. 

Yesterday  was  another  of  the  few  sun-shiny-days  with  which 
human  life  is  so  scantily  furnished.  We  spent  it  at  Garrick’s,  he 
was  in  high  good  humour,  and  inexpressibly  agreeable.  Here 
was  likely  to  have  been  another  jostling  and  intersecting  of  our 
pleasures ;  but  as  they  knew  Johnson  would  be  with  us  at  seven, 
Mrs.  Garrick  was  so  good  as  to  dine  a  little  after  three,  and  all 
things  fell  out  in  comfortable  succession.  We  were  at  the 
reading  of  a  new  tragedy,  and  insolently  and  unfeelingly  pro¬ 
nounced  against  it.  We  got  home  in  time :  I  hardly  ever  spent 
an  evening  more  pleasantly  or  profitably.  Johnson,  full  of 
wisdom  and  piety,  was  very  communicative.  To  enjoy  Dr.  John¬ 
son  perfectly,  one  must  have  him  to  oneself,  as  he  seldom  cares 
to  speak  in  mixed  parties.  Our  tea  was  not  over  till  nine, 
we  then  fell  upon  Sir  Eldred  :  he  read  both  poems  through, 
suggested  some  little  alterations  in  the  first,  and  did  me  the 
honour  to  write  one  whole  stanza  1 ;  but  in  the  Rock,  he  has  not 
altered  a  word.  Though  only  a  tea-visit,  he  staid  with  us  till 
twelve.  I  was  quite  at  my  ease,  and  never  once  asked  him  to 
eat 2  (drink  he  never  does  any  thing,  but  tea).  Memoirs ,  i.  64. 


[From  a  letter  by  one  of  Hannah  More’s  sisters.] 

London,  1776. 

If  a  wedding  should  take  place  before  our  return,  don’t  be 


surprised, — between  the  mother 

1  ‘  My  scorn  has  oft  the  dart  re- 
pell’d 

Which  guileful  beauty  threw, 
But  goodness  heard,  and  grace 
beheld, 


of  Sir  Eldred,  and  the  father  of 

Must  every  heart  subdue.’ 
Hannah  More’s  Works ,  ed.  1834, 
v.  241. 

2  For  his  dislike  of  being  pressed 
to  eat  see  post,  p.  278  n. 

my 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


my  much-loved  Irene  ;  nay,  Mrs.  Montagu  says  if  tender  words 
are  the  precursors  of  connubial  engagements,  we  may  expect 
great  things  ;  for  it  is  nothing  but  ‘  child  ’ — ‘  little  fool  ’ — £  love,’ 
and  ‘  dearest.5  After  much  critical  discourse,  he  turns  round  to 
me,  and  with  one  of  his  most  amiable  looks,  which  must  be  seen 
to  form  the  least  idea  of  it,  he  says,  ‘  I  have  heard  that  you  are 
engaged  in  the  useful  and  honourable  employment  of  teaching 
young  ladies.’  Upon  which,  with  all  the  same  ease,  familiarity, 
and  confidence,  we  should  have  done  had  only  our  own  dear 
Dr.  Stonehouse  been  present,  we  entered  upon  the  history  of  our 
birth,  parentage,  and  education  ;  shewing  how  we  were  born  with 
more  desires  than  guineas ;  and  how,  as  years  increased  our 
appetites,  the  cupboard  at  home  began  to  grow  too  small  to 
gratify  them  ;  and  how,  with  a  bottle  of  water,  a  bed,  and  a 
blanket,  we  set  out  to  seek  our  fortunes  ;  and  how  we  found 
a  great  house,  with  nothing  in  it  ;  and  how  it  was  like  to  remain 
so,  till,  looking  into  our  knowledge-boxes,  we  happened  to  find 
a  little  laming ,  a  good  thing  when  land  is  gone  *,  or  rather  none  : 
and  so  at  last,  by  giving  a  little  of  this  little  laming  to  those 
who  had  less,  we  got  a  good  store  of  gold  in  return  ;  but  how, 
alas !  we  wanted  the  wit  to  keep  it — ‘  I  love  you  both,5  cried  the 
inamorato — ‘  I  love  you  all  five — I  never  was  at  Bristol — I  will 
come  on  purpose  to  see  you 1  2 — what !  five  women  live  happily 
together! — I  will  come  and  see  you — I  have  spent  a  happy 
evening — I  am  glad  I  came — God  for  ever  bless  you;  you 
live  lives  to  shame  duchesses.5  He  took  his  leave  with  so 
much  warmth  and  tenderness,  we  were  quite  affected  at  his 
manner.  .  .  . 

Dr.  Johnson  and  Hannah,  last  night,  had  a  violent  quarrel,  till 
at  length  laughter  ran  so  high  on  all  sides,  that  argument  was 


1  ‘  When  land  is  gone  and  money 

spent, 

Then  learning  is  most  excel¬ 
lent.’ 

2  He  visited  it  with  Boswell  in  the 
spring  of  this  year.  Life ,  iii.  50. 
Boswell  does  not  mention  their 
calling  on  the  Mores.  That  they  did 
so,  when  Hannah  was  in  London, 


we  learn  from  a  letter  to  her  sisters, 
in  which  she  says  : — ‘  I  find  Mr. 
Boswell  called  upon  you  at  Bristol 
with  Dr.  Johnson  ;  he  told  me  so  this 
morning  when  he  breakfasted  here 
[at  the  Garricks]  with  Sir  William 
Forbes  and  Dr.  Johnson.’  Memoirs , 
i.  80.  Of  this  breakfast  neither  she 
nor  Boswell  gives  any  account. 

confounded 


i86 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


confounded  in  noise ;  the  gallant  youth,  at  one  in  the  morning, 
set  us  down  at  our  lodgings.  Memoirs ,  i.  66. 

[From  Hannah  More  to  her  family.] 

London,  1776. 

At  six,  I  begged  leave  to  come  home  [from  the  Garricks],  as 
I  expected  m y  petite  assemblee  a  little  after  seven.  Mrs.  Garrick 
offered  me  all  her  fine  things,  but,  as  I  hate  admixtures  of  finery 
and  meanness,  I  refused  every  thing  except  a  little  cream,  and 
a  few  sorts  of  cakes.  They  came  at  seven.  The  dramatis 
personce  were,  Mrs.  Boscawen,  Mrs.  Garrick,  and  Miss  Reynolds  ; 
my  beaux  were  Dr.  Johnson,  Dean  Tucker1,  and  last,  but  not 
least  in  our  love,  David  Garrick.  You  know  that  wherever 
Johnson  is,  the  confinement  to  the  tea-table  is  rather  a  durable 
situation  ;  and  it  was  an  hour  and  a  half  before  I  got  my  enlarge¬ 
ment.  However,  my  ears  were  opened,  though  my  tongue  was 
locked,  and  they  all  stayed  till  near  eleven. 

Garrick  was  the  very  soul  of  the  company,  and  I  never  saw 
Johnson  in  such  perfect  good  humour.  Sally  knows  we  have 
often  heard  that  one  can  never  properly  enjoy  the  company  of 
these  two  unless  they  are  together2.  There  is  great  truth  in 
this  remark ;  for  after  the  Dean  and  Mrs.  Boscawen  (who  were 
the  only  strangers)  were  withdrawn,  and  the  rest  stood  up  to  go, 
Johnson  and  Garrick  began  a  close  encounter,  telling  old  stories, 

1  .  * 

‘e’en  from  their  boyish  days3,’  at  Lichfield.  We  all  stood  round 
them  above  an  hour,  laughing  in  defiance  of  every  rule  of  de¬ 
corum  and  Chesterfield 4.  I  believe  we  should  not  have  thought 


1  Josiah  Tucker,  Dean  of  Glou¬ 
cester,  who  had  published  Tracts 
about  the  American  Colonies,  to 
which  Johnson  had  replied  in  Taxa¬ 
tion  no  Tyran?iy  {Works,  vi.  259) 
and  Burke  with  great  severity  in  his 
Speech  on  American  Taxation.  Burke 
had  said  : — ‘This  Dr.  Tucker  is  al¬ 
ready  a  dean,  and  his  earliest  labours 
in  this  vineyard  will,  I  suppose,  raise 
him  to  a  bishopric.’  Burke’s  Select 
Works,  ed.  E.  J.  Payne,  i.  140. 

Miss  Burney  writing  of  him  in 
1 788  says,  ‘  He  is  past  eighty,  and 


has  a  most  shrewd  and  keen  old  face.’ 
Mine.  D’Arblay’s  Diary,  iv.  182. 

2  Boswell  describes  how  one  day 
‘  Garrick  played  round  Johnson  with 
a  fond  vivacity,  taking  hold  of  the 
breasts  of  his  coat,  and,  looking  up 
in  his  face  with  a  lively  archness, 
complimented  him  on  the  good 
health  which  he  seemed  then  to 
enjoy ;  while  the  sage,  shaking  his 
head,  beheld  him  with  a  gentle  com¬ 
placency.’  Life,  ii.  82. 

3  Othello,  Act  i.  sc.  3,  1.  132. 

4  Life,  ii.  378,  n.  2. 


of 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


of  sitting  down  or  of  parting,  had  not  an  impertinent  watchman 
been  saucily  vociferous.  Johnson  outstaid  them  all,  and  sat  with 
me  half  an  hour.  Memoirs ,  i.  69. 

London,  1776. 

Did  I  ever  tell  you  what  Dr.  Johnson  said  to  me  of  my  friend 
the  Dean  of  Gloucester  ?  I  asked  him  what  he  thought  of  him. 
His  answer  was  verbatim  as  follows :  ‘  I  look  upon  the  Dean  of 
Gloucester  to  be  one  of  the  few  excellent  writers  of  this  period. 
I  differ  from  him  in  opinion,  and  have  expressed  that  difference 
in  my  writings  ;  but  I  hope  what  I  wrote  did  not  indicate  what 
I  did  not  feel,  for  I  felt  no  acrimony.  No  person,  however 
learned,  can  read  his  writings  without  improvement.  He  is  sure 
to  find  something  he  did  not  know  before.’  I  told  him  the  Dean 
did  not  value  himself  on  elegance  of  style.  He  said  he  knew 
nobody  whose  style  was  more  perspicuous,  manly,  and  vigorous, 
or  better  suited  to  his  subject.  I  was  not  a  little  pleased 
with  this  tribute  to  the  worthy  Dean’s  merit,  from  such  a  judge 
of  merit  ;  that  man,  too,  professedly  differing  from  him  in 
opinion . 

Keeping  bad  company  leads  to  all  other  bad  things.  I  have 
got  the  headache  to-day,  by  raking  out  so  late  with  that  gay 
libertine  Johnson.  Do  you  know — /  did  not,  that  he  wrote 
a  quarter  of  the  Adventurer  1  ?  I  made  him  tell  me  all  that  he 
wrote  in  the  ‘  fugitive  pieces  2.’  Memoir s,  i.  70. 

Adelphi3,  1776. 

Did  I  tell  you  we  had  a  very  agreeable  day  at  Mrs.  Bosca wen’s? 
I  like  Mr.  Berenger4  prodigiously.  I  met  the  Bunbury  family 
at  Sir  Joshua’s.  Mr.  Boswell  (Corsican  Boswell)  was  here  last 
night 5 ;  he  is  a  very  agreeable  good-natured  man ;  he  perfectly 
adores  Johnson:  they  have  this  day  set  out  together  for  Oxford, 
Lichfield,  &c.,  that  the  Doctor  may  take  leave  of  all  his  old 
friends  and  acquaintances,  previous  to  his  great  expedition  across 


1  He  did  not  write  so  much  as  a 
quarter. 

2  Tom  Davies,  in  Johnson’s  ab¬ 

sence  in  Scotland  and  without  his 

leave,  published  two  volumes  en¬ 

titled  Miscellaneous  and  Fugitive 
Pieces ,  of  which  all  but  about  an 


eighth  was  Johnson’s.  Life ,  ii.  270; 
and  ante ,  i.  184. 

3  Mrs.  Garrick’s  house.  Life ,  iv.  99. 

4  Ante ,  i.  254. 

5  Boswell,  who  keeps  his  narrative 
so  closely  to  what  concerns  Johnson, 
does  not  mention  this. 


the 


1 88 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


the  Alps  *.  I  lament  his  undertaking  such  a  journey  at  his  time 
of  life,  with  beginning  infirmities ;  I  hope  he  will  not  leave  his 
bones  on  classic  ground.  Memoirs ,  i.  74. 

[From  H.  More  to  one  of  her  sisters.] 

London,  17  78. 

I  dined  with  the  Garricks  on  Thursday ;  he  went  with  me  in 
the  evening,  intending  only  to  set  me  down  at  Sir  Joshua’s,  where 
I  was  engaged  to  pass  the  evening.  I  was  not  a  little  proud  to 
be  the  means  of  bringing  such  a  beau  into  such  a  party.  We 
found  Gibbon1 2,  Johnson,  Hermes  Harris,  Burney,  Chambers, 
Ramsay,  the  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph,  Boswell,  Langton,  &c. ;  and 
scarce  an  expletive  man  or  woman  among  them.  Garrick  put 
Johnson  into  such  good  spirits  that  I  never  knew  him  so  enter¬ 
taining  or  more  instructive.  He  was  as  brilliant  as  himself,  and 
as  good-humoured  as  any  one  else3.  Memoirs ,  i.  146. 

London,  1780. 

I  spent  a  very  comfortable  day  yesterday  with  Miss  Reynolds; 
only  Dr.  Johnson,  and  Mrs.  Williams  and  myself.  He  is  in  but 
poor  health,  but  his  mind  has  lost  nothing  of  its  vigour.  He 
never  opens  his  mouth  but  one  learns  something ;  one  is  sure 
either  of  hearing  a  new  idea,  or  an  old  one  expressed  in  an 


1  Johnson  wrote  to  Boswell  on 
March  5  of  this  year: — ‘Of  my 
company  you  cannot  in  the  next 
month  have  much,  for  Mr.  Thrale 
will  take  me  to  Italy,  he  says,  on 
the  first  of  April.  ...  If  you  will  come 
to  me,  you  must  come  very  quickly; 
and  even  then  I  know  not  but  we 
may  scour  the  country  together,  for 
I  have  a  mind  to  see  Oxford  and 
Lichfield  before  I  set  out  on  this 
long  journey.’  Life ,  ii.  423.  The 
tour  was  given  up  on  the  sudden 
death  of  the  Thrales’  only  son.  Ib. 
p.  468.  See  also  ante ,  i.  263. 

2  On  Jan.  19,  1794,  Hannah  More 
recorded  : — ‘  Heard  of  the  death  of 

Mr.  Gibbon.  .  .  .  He  too  was  my 
acquaintance.  Lord,  I  bless  thee, 
considering  how  much  infidel  ac¬ 


quaintance  I  have  had,  that  my  soul 
never  came  into  their  secret.’  Me¬ 
moirs,  ii.  415.  The  same  year  she 
recorded  : — ‘  It  is  now,  I  think,  five 
or  six  years  since  I  have  been  en¬ 
abled,  by  the  grace  of  God,  in  a  good 
degree,  to  give  up  all  human  studies. 
I  have  not  allowed  myself  to  read 
any  classic  or  pagan  author  for 
many  years — I  mean  by  myself.’  Ib. 
ii.  420. 

3  Boswell,  after  a  full  account  of 
the  dinner,  describes  ‘  the  rich  as¬ 
semblage  ’  he  found  in  the  drawing¬ 
room.  He  continues  : — ‘  After  wan¬ 
dering  about  in  a  kind  of  pleasing 
distraction  for  some  time,  I  got  into 
a  corner  with  Johnson,  Garrick,  and 
Harris.’  Life ,  iii.  256. 


original 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


189 


original  manner.  We  did  not  part  till  eleven.  He  scolded  me 
heartily,  as  usual,  when  I  differed  from  him  in  opinion,  and,  as 
usual,  laughed  when  I  flattered  him  x.  I  was  very  bold  in  com¬ 
batting  some  of  his  darling  prejudices  :  nay,  I  ventured  to  defend 
one  or  two  of  the  Puritans 2,  whom  I  forced  him  to  allow  to  be 
good  men,  and  good  writers.  He  said  he  was  not  angry  with 
me  at  all  for  liking  Baxter  3.  He  liked  him  himself;  ‘  but  then,’ 
said  he,  ‘  Baxter  was  bred  up  in  the  establishment,  and  would 
have  died  in  it,  if  he  could  have  got  the  living  of  Kidderminster. 

>  He  was  a  very  good  man.’  Here  he  was  wrong  ;  for  Baxter  was 
offered  a  bishopric  after  the  Restoration  4. 

I  never  saw  Johnson  really  angry  with  me  but  once;  and  his 


1  Ante ,  ii.  179,  n. 

2  Her  grandmother  ‘  used  to  tell 
her  younger  relatives,  that  they  would 
have  known  how  to  value  gospel 
privileges,  had  they  lived,  like  her, 
in  the  days  of  persecution,  when,  at 
midnight,  pious  worshippers  went 
with  stealthy  steps  through  the 
snow,  to  hear  the  words  of  inspira¬ 
tion  delivered  by  a  holy  man  at  her 
father’s  house ;  while  her  father 
with  a  drawn  sword  guarded  the 
entrance.’  Memoirs ,  i.  7. 

3  ‘ 1  asked  him  (writes  Boswell) 
what  works  of  Richard  Baxter’s  I 
should  read.  He  said,  “  Read  any 
of  them  ;  they  are  all  good.”  ’  Life , 
iv.  226.  This  is  a  somewhat  daring 
assertion,  for  ‘  in  forty  years  Baxter 
wrote  168  books,  85  of  them  quarto 
volumes.5  Printed  uniformly  in  oc¬ 
tavo  they  would  fill  ‘nearly  40,000 
closely  printed  pages.’  J.  H.  Davies’s 
Life  of  Baxter,  pp.  443-4. 

His  works  were  ordered  by  the 
University  of  Oxford  to  be  publicly 
burnt  in  the  Court  of  the  Schools. 
James  Wildings5  Account  Book , 
p.  252.  Nevertheless  not  only  John¬ 
son  praised  them,  but  Barrow  said 
that  ‘  Baxter’s  practical  writings  were 
never  mended,  and  his  controversial 
ones  seldom  confuted.’  Calamy’s 


Baxter ,  ed.  1702,  p.  701. 

In  a  note  on  the  Life ,  iv.  226,  I 
quote  Hazlitt’s  story,  that  at  Kidder¬ 
minster  ‘  Baxter  was  almost  pelted 
by  the  women  for  maintaining  from 
the  pulpit  that  “  Hell  was  paved  with 
infants’  skulls.”  ’  This  story  had  its 
origin,  I  conjecture,  in  the  following 
circumstance  : — ‘  Once  all  the  igno¬ 
rant  rout  were  raging  mad  against 
him  for  preaching  to  them  the  doc¬ 
trine  of  original  sin,  and  telling  them, 
“  That  infants  before  regeneration 
had  so  much  guilt  and  corruption 
as  made  them  loathsome  in  the  eyes 
of  God.  Whereupon  they  vented  it 
about  in  the  country,  that  he  preached 
that  God  hated  and  loathed  infants. 
So  that  they  railed  at  him  as  he 
passed  through  the  streets.5”  Ca¬ 
lamy’s  Baxter ,  p.  22. 

For  his  Humble  Advice  to  Parlia - 
ment  that  officers  be  authorized  to 
whip  those  that  cannot  pay  the  fines 
for  the  non-observance  of  the  Lord’s 
day  see  Barclay’s  Inner  Life  of  the 
Religious  Societies  of  the  Co?nmon- 
wealth ,  1876,  p.  183. 

4  ‘  Calamy  and  Baxter  refused  the 
sees  of  Lichfield  and  Hereford.’ 
Burnet’s  History  of  His  Own  Time , 
ed.  1818,  i.  204. 

displeasure 


190 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


displeasure  did  him  so  much  honour  that  I  loved  him  the  better 
for  it.  I  alluded  rather  flippantly,  I  fear,  to  some  witty  passage 
in  Tom  Jones :  he  replied,  ‘  I  am  shocked  to  hear  you  quote 
from  so  vicious  a  book.  I  am  sorry  to  hear  you  have  read  it : 
a  confession  which  no  modest  lady  should  ever  make  k  I  scarcely 
know  a  more  corrupt  work/  I  thanked  him  for  his  correction  ; 
assured  him  I  thought  full  as  ill  of  it  now  as  he  did,  and  had 
only  read  it  at  an  age  when  I  was  more  subject  to  be  caught  by 
the  wit,  than  able  to  discern  the  mischief.  Of  Joseph  Andrews 
I  declared  my  decided  abhorrence  2.  He  went  so  far  as  to  refuse 
to  Fielding  the  great  talents  which  hre  ascribed  to  him,  and 
broke  out  into  a  noble  panegyric  on  his  competitor,  Richardson  ; 
who,  he  said,  was  as  superior  to  him  in  talents  as  in  virtue  ;  and 

1 

whom  he  pronounced  to  be  the  greatest  genius  that  had  shed  its 
lustre  on  this  path  of  literature  3.  Memoirs ,  i.  168. 


1  Miss  Burney  at  the  age  of  seven¬ 
teen  recorded  in  her  Diary  : — ‘  I  am 
now  going  to  charm  myself  for  the 
third  time  with  poor  Sterne’s  Sen¬ 
timental  Journey  l  Early  Diary  of 
F.  Burney ,  i.  45.  At  Streatham  she 
recorded  a  conversation — Johnson 
was  not  present— when  1  Candidevr2L<s, 
produced,  and  Mrs.  Thrale  read 
aloud  the  part  ,  concerning  Poco¬ 
curante  ;  and  really  the  cap  fitted  so 
well  that  Mr.  Seward  could  not 
attempt  to  dispute  it.’  Mme.  D’Ar- 
blay’s  Diary ,  ed.  J842,  i.  226. 

2  ‘  I  never  read  Joseph  Andrews,’ 
said  Johnson.  Life ,  ii.  174. 

3  lb.  ii.  48,  173  ;  ante ,  i.  282. 

Smollett  describes  Richardson’s 

novels  as  ‘a  species  of  writing  equally 
new  and  extraordinary,  where,  min¬ 
gled  with  much  superfluity,  we  find 
a  sublime  system  of  ethics,  an  amaz¬ 
ing  knowledge  and  command  of 
human  nature.’  History  of  England , 
ed.  1800,  v.  382. 

Hannah  More  wrote  in  1822: — 

‘  I  have  been  really  looking  for  time 
to  read  one  or  two  of  Walter  Scott’s 


novels.  In  my  youth  Clarissa  and  Sir 
Charles  Grandison  were  the  reigning 
entertainment.  Whatever  objections 
may  be  made  to  them  in  certain 
respects,  they  contain  more  maxims 
of  virtue  and  sound  moral  principle 
than  half  the  books  called  moral.’ 
Memoirs ,  iv.  145. 

‘  Richardson’s  conversation,’  writes 
Hawkins  (p.  384),  ‘  was  of  the 
preceptive  kind,  but  it  wanted  the 
diversity  of  Johnson’s,  and  had 
no  intermixture  of  wit  and  humour. 
Richardson  could  never  relate  a 
pleasant  story,  and  hardly  relish  one 
told  by  another  :  he  was  ever  think¬ 
ing  of  his  own  writings,  and  listening 
to  the  praises  which,  with  an  emulous 
profusion,  his  friends  were  inces¬ 
santly  bestowing  on  them  ;  he  would 
scarce  enter  into  free  conversation 
with  any  one  that  he  thought  had 
not  read  Clarissa  or  Sir  Charles 
Grandison ,  and  at  best,  he  could  not 
be  said  to  be  a  companionable  man.’ 
Neither  was  Hawkins  ‘a  clubable 
man.’  Life ,  i.  27,  n. 

‘  That  Richardson  (with  all  his 

The 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More . 


Adelphi,  1780. 

The  other  evening  they  carried  me  to  Mrs.  Ord’s  assembly 1 ; 
I  was  quite  dressed  for  the  purpose.  Mrs.  Garrick  gave  me 
an  elegant  cap,  and  put  it  on  herself ;  so  that  I  was  quite  sure 
of  being  smart:  but  how  short-lived  is  all  human  joy!  and  see 
what  it  is  to  live  in  the  country !  When  I  came  into  the  draw¬ 
ing-rooms,  I  found  them  full  of  company,  every  human  creature 
in  deep  mourning,  and  I,  poor  I,  all  gorgeous  in  scarlet.  I  never 
recollected  that  the  mournifig  for  some  foreign  Wilhelmina 
Jaquelina  was  not  over.  However  I  got  over  it  as  well  as  I 
could,  made  an  apology,  lamented  the  ignorance  in  which  I  had 
lately  lived,  and  I  hope  this  false  step  of  mine  will  be  buried  in 
oblivion.  There  was  all  the  old  set,  the  Johnsons,  the  Burneys, 
the  Chapones 2,  the  Thrales,  the  Smelts 3,  the  Pepyses 4,  the 
Ramsays 5,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum.  Even  Jacobite  Johhson  6  was 
in  deep  mourning.  Memoirs ,  i.  170. 

London,  1780. 

I  was,  the  other  night,  at  Mrs.  Ord’s.  Every  body  was  there, 
and  in  such  a  crowd  I  thought  myself  well  off  to  be  wedged  in 


twaddle)  is  better  than  Fielding,  I  am 
quite  certain.  There  is  nothing  at  all 
comparable  to  Lovelace  in  all  Field¬ 
ing,  whose  characters  are  common 
and  vulgar  types  of  squires,  ostlers, 
lady’s  maids,  &c.,  very  easily  drawn. 
.  .  .  Think  of  Clarissa  being  one  of 
Alfred  de  Musset’s  favourite  books. 
It  reminded  me  of  our  Tennyson 
.  .  .  of  his  once  saying  to  me  of 
Clarissa ,  “I  love  those  large  still 
books.”’  Letters  of  Edward  Fitz¬ 
gerald,  ii.  13 1,  243. 

1  Johnson  mentions  going  to  Mrs. 
Ord’s  in  April,  1780.  Letters ,  ii.  146, 
149. 

2  The  ‘  admirable  ’  Mrs.  Chapone. 
Life,  iv.  246  ;  Letters,  ii.  14 1. 

3  lb.  ii.  149,  n.  4.  ‘  Mr.  Smelt,’ 

■writes  H.  More  {Memoirs,  i.  274', 
‘  was  preceptor  to  the  Prince  of  Wales, 
and  as  he  would  receive  no  settled 
appointment  he  is  distinguished  by 


the  high  appellation  of  the  King’s 
friend.’  This  appellation  is  to  be  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  that  of  the  Court 
faction — ‘the  King’s  friends.’  Life, 
iv.  165,  n .  3. 

4  Ante,  i.  244. 

Mr.  Pepys,  advising  Hannah  More 
to  choose  interesting  subjects  for  her 
letters,  as  they  might  hereafter  be 
published,  continues  : — ‘  Why  don’t 
you  wear  your  ring,  my  dear  ?’  says 
a  father,  in  some  play,  to  his  daughter. 
‘  Because,  papa,  it  hurts  me  when 
anybody  squeezes  my  hand.’  ‘  What 
business  have  you  to  have  your  hand 
squeezed  ?  ’  ‘  Certainly  not ;  but 

still  you  know,  papa,  one  would  like 
to  keep  it  in  squeezable  order?  Me¬ 
moirs,  iii.  380. 

5  Life,  iii.  331. 

6  For  Johnson’s  ‘  affectation  of 
Jacobitism  ’  see  ib .  i.  429. 


with 


192 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


with  Mr.  Smelt,  Langton,  Ramsay,  and  Johnson.  Johnson  told 
me  he  had  been  with  the  king  that  morning,  who  enjoined  him 
to  add  Spencer  [sic]  to  his  Lives  of  the  Poets  *.  I  seconded  the 
motion  ;  he  promised  to  think  of  it,  but  said  the  booksellers  had 
not  included  him  in  their  list  of  the  poets  2.  .  .  . 

Instead  of  going  to  Audley  Street 3,  where  I  was  invited, 
I  went  to  Mrs.  Reynolds’s4 *,  and  sat  for  my  picture.  Just  as 
she  began  to  paint,  in  came  Dr.  Johnson,  who  staid  the  whole 
time,  and  said  good  things  by  way  of  making  me  look  well. 
I  did  not  forget  to  ask  him  for  a  page  for  your  memorandum 
book  s,  and  he  promised  to  write,  but  said  you  ought  to  be  con¬ 
tented  with  a  quotation  ;  this,  however,  I  told  him  you  would 
not  accept.  Memoirs ,  i.  174. 

London,  1781. 

Mrs.  B.6  having  recently  desired  Johnson  to  look  over  her 
new  play  of  the  ‘  Siege  of  Sinope  ’  before  it  was  acted,  he  always 
found  means  to  evade  it ;  at  last  she  pressed  him  so  closely 
that  he  actually  refused  to  do  it,  and  told  her  that  she  herself, 
by  carefully  looking  it  over,  would  be  able  to  see  if  there  was 
any  thing  amiss  as  well  as  he  could.  s  But,  sir/  said  she,  ‘  I  have 
no  time.  I  have  already  so  many  irons  in  the  fire.’  ‘  Why 
then,  madam,’  said  he,  (quite  out  of  patience)  ‘  the  best  thing 
I  can  advise  you  to  do  is,  to  put  your  tragedy  along  with  your 
irons.’  Memoirs ,  i.  200. 

London,  1781. 

‘  Praise/  says  Dr.  Johnson,  1  is  the  tribute  which  every  man  is 
expected  to  pay  for  the  grant  of  perusing  a  manuscript 7.’  .  .  . 
Think  of  Johnson’s  having  apartments  in  Grosvenor  Square8! 


1  Life ,  iv.  410. 

2  ‘  The  edition  of  The  English 
Poets  was  not  an  undertaking  directed 
by  Johnson,  but  he  was  to  furnish 
a  Preface  and  Life  to  any  poet  the 
booksellers  pleased.’  Ib.  iii.  137. 

3  Mrs.  Boscawen’s  house.  See 
Memoirs ,  i.  162. 

4  Hannah  More  hitherto  has 

generally  spoken  of  her  as  Miss  Rey¬ 

nolds.  She  was  born  in  1729  (Tay¬ 

lor’s  Reynolds,  i.  4),  and  was  fifty 

years  old.  For  her  oil-paintings, 


which,  as  her  brother  said,  ‘  made 
other  people  laugh  and  him  cry,’  see 
Northcote’s  Reynolds ,  ii.  160. 

5  A  collection  of  autographs  of 
eminent  persons  which  her  sister  was 
making  at  that  time.  Note  by 
Roberts. 

6  Frances  Brooke.  Ante ,  i.  322. 

7  For  the  ‘  exquisite  address’  with 
which  he  once  evaded  paying  this 
tribute,  see  Life,  iii.  373. 

8  ‘  Mr.  Thrale  (writes  Boswell) 
had  removed,  I  suppose  by  the  soli- 

but 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


i93 


but  he  says  it  is  not  half  so  convenient  as  Bolt  Court.  He  has 
just  finished  the  Poets  ;  Pope  is  the  last J.  I  am  sorry  he  has  lost 
so  much  credit  by  Lord  Lyttleton’s  ;  he  treats  him  almost 
with  contempt  ;  makes  him  out  a  poor  writer,  and  an  envious 
man  2;  speaks  well  only  of  his  ‘  Conversion  of  St.  Paul,5  of  which 
he  says,  ‘  it  is  sufficient  to  say  it  has  never  been  answered  V 
Mrs.  Montagu  and  Mr.  Pepys,  his  two  chief  surviving  friends, 
are  very  angry 4.  Memoirs ,  i.  106. 

London,  1781. 

Tuesday  we  were  a  small  and  very  choice  party  at  Bishop 
Shipley’s5.  Lord  and  Lady  Spencer6,  Lord  and  Lady  Al- 


citation  of  Mrs.  Thrale,  to  a  house  in 
Grosvenor  Square.’  Life ,  iv.  72. 

1  ‘  Some  time  in  March  [1781] 

I  finished  the  Lives  of  the  Poets.’ 
Ante ,  i.  96.  On  March  5  he  wrote 
to  Strahan  that  he  had  done  them. 
Letters,  ii.  207.  He  did  not  in 
writing  them  keep  to  the  order  in 
which  they  were  published. 

2  Miss  More,  I  suppose,  is  think¬ 
ing  of  the  passage  in  which  it  is  said 
that  ‘Lyttelton’s  zeal  was  considered 
by  the  courtiers  not  only  as  violent, 
but  as  acrimonious  and  malignant.’ 
Perhaps  however  she  had  in  mind 
a  passage  in  the  Life  of  Shenstone. 
Works ,  viii.  410;  ante,  ii.  3,  n. 

3  Johnson  describes  it  as  ‘  a  trea¬ 
tise  to  which  infidelity  has  never 
been  able  to  fabricate  a  specious 
answer.’  Works,  viii.  490. 

4  Life,  iv.  64,  65,  n .  1  ;  ante,  i.  244. 

5  Boswell  records  a  dinner  on 
Thursday,  April  12,  ‘at  a  Bishop’s, 
where  were  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
Mr.  Berrenger,  and  some  more  com¬ 
pany.’  He  adds,  ‘  I  have  unfor¬ 
tunately  recorded  none  of  Johnson’s 
conversation.’  Life,  iv.  88.  If,  as 
seems  most  likely,  it  was  this  same 
dinner,  his  failure  to  keep  a  record 
was,  no  doubt,  due  to  his  being 
‘much  disordered  with  wine.’  His 
journal  he  had  not  kept  diligently 

VOL.  II.  O 


for  some  weeks.  I  have  little  doubt 
that  it  was  on  Tuesday,  as  Miss 
More  says,  that  the  dinner  took 
place.  It  was  in  Passion  Week,  and 
though  Johnson  made  an  ‘  ingenious 
defence  of  his  dining  twice  abroad 
in  Passion  Week  ’  at  the  houses  of 
Bishops  (ib.),  yet  I  do  not  think  he 
would  have  dined  on  the  eve  of 
Good  Friday.  On  that  day  he  wrote 
to  Mrs.  Thrale  (who  had  just  lost 
her  husband) ‘  The  business  of 
Christians  is  now  for  a  few  days 
in  their  own  bosoms.’  Letters , 
ii.  214. 

Shipley,  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph, 
Johnson  described  as  ‘knowing  and 
conversible  ’  ( Letters ,  i.  400),  and  as 
a  man  ‘  who  comes  to  every  place.’ 
Ib.  ii.  149. 

He  and  Watson  of  Llandaff  were 
the  only  Bishops  who,  at  a  meeting 
of  their  body  convened  by  the  Arch¬ 
bishop  of  Canterbury  in  1 787,  at  the 
instance  of  Pitt,  voted  against  the 
maintenance  of  the  Test  and  Cor¬ 
poration  Acts.  Life  of  Watson,  i. 
181. 

Heber  married  his  grand-daughter. 

6  The  first  Earl  Spencer.  He  died 
in  1783.  ‘  He  succeeded,’  writes  his 

grandson,  ‘  to  an  enormous  property 
in  money,  as  well  as  land,  before  he 
was  of  age ;  and  he  died  at  forty- 

thorpe 


194 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


thorpe1,  Sir  Joshua,  Langton,  Boswell,  Gibbon,  and  to  my 
agreeable  surprise,  Dr.  Johnson,  were  there. 

Mrs.  Garrick  and  he  had  never  met  since  her  bereavement2. 
I  was  heartily  disgusted  with  Mr.  Boswell,  who  came  upstairs 
after  dinner,  much  disordered  with  wine 3,  and  addressed  me  in 
a  manner  that  drew  from  me  a  sharp  rebuke,  for  which  I  fancy 
he  will  not  easily  forgive  me.  Johnson  came  to  see  us  the  next 
morning,  and  made  us  a  long  visit.  On  Mrs.  Garrick’s  telling 
him  she  was  always  more  at  ease  with  persons  who  had  suffered 
the  same  loss  with  herself,  he  said  that  was  a  comfort  she  could 
seldom  have,  considering  the  superiority  of  his  merit,  and  the 
cordiality  of  their  union.  He  bore  his  strong  testimony  to 
the  liberality  of  Garrick 4.  He  reproved  me  with  pretended 
sharpness  for  reading  c  Les  Pensees  de  Pascal  V  or  any  of  the 
Port  Royal  authors,  alleging  that  as  a  good  Protestant,  I  ought 
to  abstain  from  books  written  by  Catholics.  I  was  beginning  to 
stand  upon  my  defence,  when  he  took  me  with  both  hands,  and 
with  a  tear  running  down  his  cheeks,  ‘  Child,’  said  he,’  with  the 
most  affecting  earnestness,  ‘  I  am  heartily  glad  that  you  read 
pious  books,  by  whomsoever  they  may  be  written  6.’  Memoirs , 
i.  210. 

London,  1781. 

We  begin  now  to  be  a  little  cheerful  at  home 7 ,  and  to  have  our 
small  parties.  One  such  we  have  just  had,  and  the  day  and 


nine  years  old,  very  much  in  debt.’ 
Memoir  of  Viscount  Althorp ,  ed. 
1876;  Preface,  p.  19. 

1  Second  Earl  and  Countess  Spen¬ 
cer.  Letters ,  ii.  65,  n.  9,  ill,  n.  2. 

2  Garrick  died  on  Jan.  20,  1779. 

3  This  same  spring  he  went  to  the 
Hon.  Miss  Monckton’s,  ‘  certainly  in 
extraordinary  spirits,  and  above  all 
fear  or  awe,’  where  Johnson,  he  writes, 
‘  kept  me  as  quiet  as  possible.’  Life , 
iv.  109. 

4  Ante ,  i.  437. 

5  He  gave  Boswell  a  copy  on  Good 
Friday,  1779.  Ante,  i.  87. 

6  They  were  a  change  from  Tom 
Jones.  Ante ,  ii.  190. 


7  She  was  living  with  Mrs.  Gar¬ 
rick,  who  called  her  ‘  her  Chaplain.’ 
Garrick  called  her  Nine  (the  Nine 
Muses).  ‘Nine,’  he  said,  ‘you  are 
a  Sunday  Woman?  Life,  iv.  96. 

Of  Mrs.  Garrick  Mrs.  Piozzi  wrote 
in  1789: — ‘That  woman  has  lived 
a  very  wise  life,  regular  and  steady 
in  her  conduct,  attentive  to  every 
word  she  speaks  and  every  step  she 
treads,  decorous  in  her  manners  and 
graceful  in  her  person.’  Hayward’s 
Piozzi,  ed.  1861,  i.  302.  ‘There  is,’ 
wrote  Miss  Burney  in  1771, ‘some¬ 
thing  so  peculiarly  graceful  in  her 
motion,  and  pleasing  in  her  address, 
that  the  most  trifling  words  have 


evening 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


T95 


evening  turned  out  very  pleasant1.  Johnson  was  in  full  song, 
and  I  quarrelled  with  him  sadly.  I  accused  him  of  not  having 
done  justice  to  the  ‘  Allegro,’  and  c  Penseroso.’  He  spoke  dis¬ 
paragingly  of  both2.  I  praised  Lycidas,  which  he  absolutely 
abused  3,  adding,  if  Milton  had  not  written  the  Paradise  Lost, 
he  would  have  only  ranked  among  the  minor  poets 4 :  he  was 
a  Phidias  that  could  cut  a  Colossus  out  of  a  rock,  but  could  not 
cut  heads  out  of  cherry  stones  5. 

Boswell  brought  to  my  mind  the  whole  of  a  very  mirthful 
conversation  at  dear  Mrs.  Garrick’s,  and  my  being  made  by  Sir 
William  Forbes6  the  umpire  in  a  trial  of  skill  between  Garrick 
and  Boswell,  which  could  most  nearly  imitate  Dr.  Johnson’s 
manner.  I  remember  I  gave  it  for  Boswell  in  familiar  con¬ 
versation,  and  for  Garrick  in  reciting  poetry 1 .  Mrs.  Boscawen 
shone  with  her  usual  mild  lustre.  Memoirs ,  i.  212. 


weight  and  power,  when  spoken  by 
her  to  oblige  and  even  delight.’ 
Early  Diary  of  F.  Burney ,  i.  hi. 

1  It  was  on  April  20  the  party  was 
held.  Boswell  writes  of  it,  ‘  I  spent 
with  Johnson  one  of  the  happiest 
days  that  I  remember  to  have  en¬ 
joyed  in  the  whole  course  of  my  life.’ 
Life ,  iv.  96. 

2  It  must  have  been  by  way  of 
contradiction,  for  in  the  Life  of 
Milton  he  says  : — ‘  Every  man  that 
reads  them  reads  them  with  plea¬ 
sure.  .  .  .  They  are  two  noble  efforts 
of  imagination.5  Works ,  vii.  12 1-2. 

Dr.  Warton,  twenty-five  years 
earlier,  spoke  of  them  as  poems 
‘  which  are  now  universally  known  ; 
but  which  by  a  strange  fatality  lay 
in  a  sort  of  obscurity,  the  private 
enjoyment  of  a  few  curious  readers, 
till  they  were  set  to  admirable  music 
by  Mr.  Handel.’  Essay  on  Pofe ,  ed. 
1762,  i.  39. 

3  Of  Lycidas  Johnson  wrote: — 
‘  Surely  no  man  could  have  fancied 
that  he  read  it  with  pleasure,  had  he 
not  known  the  author.’  Works,  vii.  1 2 1 . 


4  Paradise  Lost  Johnson  describes 
as  ‘  a  poem  which,  considered  with 
respect  to  design,  may  claim  the  first 
place,  and  with  respect  to  perform¬ 
ance  the  second,  among  the  pro¬ 
ductions  of  the  human  mind.’  Ib. 
vii.  125.  Macaulay  thought  ‘that 
if  only  the  first  four  books  of  Para¬ 
dise  Lost  had  been  preserved  Milton 
would  then  have  been  placed  above 
Homer.’  Trevelyan’s  Macaulay ,  ed. 
1 877,  ii.  200. 

5  Life ,  iv.  305. 

6  Scott’s  ‘lamented  Forbes.’  Mar- 
mion ,  canto  iv,  Introduction.  See 
Life,  v.  24. 

7  ‘  I  recollect  Garrick’s  exhibiting 
him  to  me  one  day,  as  if  saying, 
“  Davy  has  some  convivial  pleasantry 
about  him,  but  ’tis  a  futile  fellow  ”  ; 
which  he  uttered  perfectly  with  the 
tone  and  air  of  Johnson.’  Ib.  ii. 
326. 

Charlotte  Burney  describes  how 
one  day  ‘  Garrick  took  off  Dr.  John¬ 
son  most  admirably;  his  see-saw, 
his  fawing,  his  very  look,  and  his 
voice.  He  took  him  off  in  a  speech 

Poor 


O  2 


196 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


London,  1782. 

Poor  Johnson  is  in  a  bad  state  of  health1 ;  I  fear  his  constitu¬ 
tion  is  broken  up :  I  am  quite  grieved  at  it,  he  will  not  leave  an 
abler  defender  of  religion  and  virtue  behind  him,  and  the 
following  little  touch  of  tenderness  which  I  heard  of  him  last 
night  from  one  of  the  Turk’s  Head  Club2,  endears  him  to  me 
exceedingly.  There  are  always  a  great  many  candidates  ready, 
when  any  vacancy  happens  in  that  club,  and  it  requires  no  small 
interest  and  reputation  to  get  elected 3 ;  but  upon  Garrick’s 
death,  when  numberless  applications  were  made  to  succeed  him, 
Johnson  was  deaf  to  them  all ;  he  said,  No,  there  never  could  be 
found  any  successor  worthy  of  such  a  man ;  and  he  insisted 
upon  it  there  should  be  a  year’s  widowhood  in  the  club,  before 
they  thought  of  a  new  election4.  In  Dr.  Johnson  some  con¬ 
trarieties  very  harmoniously  meet ;  if  he  has  too  little  charity 
for  the  opinions  of  others,  and  too  little  patience  with  their 
faults,  he  has  the  greatest  tenderness  for  their  persons.  He  told 
me  the  other  day,  he  hated  to  hear  people  whine  about  meta¬ 
physical  distresses 5,  when  there  was  so  much  want  and  hunger 
in  the  world.  I  told  him  I  supposed  then  he  never  wept  at  any 
tragedy  but  Jane  Shore,  who  had  died  for  want  of  a  loaf6.  He 


that  has  stuck  i?i  his  gizzard  ever 
since  some  friendly  person  was  so 
obliging  as  to  repeat  it  to  him : 
“Yes,  yes,  Davy  has  some  convivial 
pleasantries  in  him ;  but  ’tis  a  futile 
Fellow.”  A  little  while  after  he  took 
him  off  in  one  of  his  own  convivial 
; pleasantries .  “No,  Sir,  I’m  for  the 
musick  of  the  ancients,  it  has  been 
corrupted  so.”  ’  Early  Diary  of  F. 
Burney ,  ii.  282,  where  the  editor  has 
an  interesting  note  on  ‘  the  musick 
of  the  ancients.’ 

1  The  entry  was  made  about  the 
middle  of  April.  For  his  Latin  letter 
about  his  health,  dated  Mails  Cale?i- 
dis ,  see  Life ,  iv.  143. 

2  ‘  The  Club  which  existed  long 
without  a  name,  but  at  Mr.  Garrick’s 
funeral  became  distinguished  by  the 
title  of  The  Literary  Club,’  writes 


Boswell  (Life,  i.  477),  who  was  evi¬ 
dently  proud  of  the  name.  The 
members  however  cling  as  much  to 
the  title  of  The  Club  as  the  head  of 
a  Scotch  clan  clings  to  The  before 
his  name. 

3  ‘A  single  black-ball  excludes  a 
candidate.’  Ib.  iii.  116.  Lord  Cam¬ 
den  (the  ex-Lord  Chancellor)  and 
the  Bishop  of  Chester  were  rejected 
on  the  same  day.  Ib.  iii.  31 1,  n.  2. 

4  Garrick  died  on  Jan.  20,  1779. 
The  next  election  was  Bishop  Ship¬ 
ley’s  in  Nov.  1780.  Croker’s  Bos¬ 
well,  ed.  1844,  ii.  327. 

5  Ante,  i.  252. 

6  ‘Nor  does  Rowe  much  interest 
or  affect  the  auditor  except  in  Jane 
Shore,  who  is  always  seen  and  heard 
with  pity.’  Works,  vii.  416. 

Charles  Burney’s  little  daughter, 

called 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


197 


called  me  a  saucy  girl z,  but  did  not  deny  the  inference.  Memoirs , 
i.  249. 

London,  1782. 

I  dined  very  pleasantly  one  day  last  week  at  the  Bishop  of 
Chester’s2.  Johnson  was  there,  and  the  Bishop  was  very 
desirous  to  draw  him  out,  as  he  wished  to  show  him  off  to  some 
of  the  company  who  had  never  seen  him.  He  begged  me  to  sit 
next  him  at  dinner,  and  to  devote  myself  to  making  him  talk. 
To  this  end,  I  consented  to  talk  more  than  became  me,  and  our 
stratagem  succeeded.  You  would  have  enjoyed  seeing  him  take 
me  by  the  hand  in  the  middle  of  dinner,  and  repeat  with  no 
small  enthusiasm,  many  passages  from  the  c  Fair  Penitent 3,’  &c. 
I  urged  him  to  take  a  little  wine,  he  replied,  ‘  I  can’t  drink 
a  little ,  child,  therefore  I  never  touch  it.  Abstinence  is  as  easy 
to  me,  as  temperance  would  be  difficult.’  He  was  very  good- 
humoured  and  gay.  One  of  the  company  happened  to  say 
a  word  about  poetry,  £  Hush,  hush,’  said  he,  ‘  it  is  dangerous  to 
say  a  word  of  poetry  before  her ;  it  is  talking  of  the  art  of  war 
before  Hannibal.’  He  continued  his  jokes,  and  lamented  that 
I  had  not  married  Chatterton,  that  posterity  might  have  seen 
a  propagation  of  poets  4.  Memoir s,  i.  251. 

Oxford,  June  13,  1782. 

Who  do  you  think  is  my  principal  Cicerone  at  Oxford  ?  Only 
Dr.  Johnson5!  and  we  do  so  gallant  it  about!  You  cannot 
imagine  with  what  delight  he  showed  me  every  part  of  his  own 
College  (Pembroke),  nor  how  rejoiced  Henderson 6  looked,  to 


‘  being  in  the  front  of  a  stage-box  at 
a  country  theatre,  and  hearing  the 
wretched  Jane  in  vain  supplicating 
“  a  morsel  to  support  her  famished 
soul,”  and  crying  out,  “  Give  me  but 
to  eat !  ”  said,  “  Madame,  will  you 
have  my  OLLANGE.”  ’  H.  More’s 
Memoirs ,  iii.  72. 

1  She  was  thirty-seven  years  old. 

2  On  April  23  or  24.  Letters ,  ii. 
250.  The  Bishop  was  Beilby  Por- 
teus.  Life ,  iii.  413. 

3  By  Nicholas  Rowe  ;  ‘  one  of  the 
most  pleasing  tragedies  on  the  stage,’ 
Johnson  calls  it.  Works,  vii.  408. 


He  told  Nichols  about  this  time 
that  ‘he  had  not  read  one  of  Rowe’s 
plays  for  thirty  years.’  Life ,  iv.  36,  n.  3. 

4  Chatterton  was  born  in  Bristol 
in  1752,  and  Hannah  More  came  to 
live  there  about  1756.  Memoirs ,  i.  14. 

5  He  was  the  guest  of  Dr.  Ed¬ 
wards,  Vice-Principal  of  Jesus 
College.  Letters ,  ii.  257,  n.  4. 

6  ‘  A  student  of  Pembroke  College, 
celebrated  for  his  wonderful  acquire¬ 
ments  in  Alchymy,  Judicial  Astro¬ 
logy,  and  other  abstruse  and  curious 
learning.’  Life,  iv.  298. 

Richard  Sharp  told  Francis  Horner 

make 


198 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More . 


make  one  in  the  party.  Dr.  Adams,  the  master  of  Pembroke, 
had  contrived  a  very  pretty  piece  of  gallantry.  We  spent  the 
day  and  evening  at  his  house.  After  dinner  Johnson  begged  to 
conduct  me  to  see  the  College,  he  would  let  no  one  show  it  me 
but  himself, — ‘  This  was  my  room  ;  this  Shenstone’s  Then 
after  pointing  out  all  the  rooms  of  the  poets  who  had  been  of  his 
college,  ‘  In  short/  said  he,  {  we  were  a  nest  of  singing-birds  ’ 2 — 


‘  that  though  Henderson  had  much 
quackery  before  ignorant  people  to 
astonish  them  with  his  eccentricities 
of  erudition,  which  became  so  much 
a  habit  that  he  was  generally  quackish 
in  the  selection  of  his  subjects,  the 
manner  was  full  of  ability ;  and  that  he 
had  a  very  powerful  understanding.’ 
Memoirs  of  F.  Horner ,  i.  241. 

Lamb  wrote  to  Coleridge  in  June, 
1796  : — ‘  Of  the  Monody  on  Hender¬ 
son  I  will  here  only  notice  these 
lines,  as  superlatively  excellent.  That 
energetic  one,  “  Shall  I  not  praise 
thee,  scholar,  Christian,  friend,”  like 
to  that  beautiful  climax  of  Shake¬ 
speare’s  “  King,  Hamlet,  Royal  Dane, 
Father1 “  yet  memory  turns  from 
little  men  to  thee,”  “And  sported 
careless  round  their  fellow  child.”  ’ 
Ainger’s  Letters  of  Lamb,  i.  14. 

De  Ouincey  tells  how  ‘  when  Hen¬ 
derson  was  disputing  at  a  dinner 
party,  his  opponent  being  pressed 
by  some  argument  too  strong  for  his 
logic  or  his  temper,  replied  by 
throwing  a  glass  of  wine  in  his  face  ; 
upon  which  Henderson  .  .  .  coolly 
wiped  it,  and  said,  “  This,  Sir,  is 
a  digression  ;  now,  if  you  please,  for 
the  argument.”’  De  Quincey’s 
Works ,  xii.  192. 

The  Monody  was  by  Joseph  Cottle. 

Coleridge  in  his  lines  To  the 
Author  of  Poems,  &c.,  says: — 

‘  But  lo !  your  Henderson  awakes 
the  Muse — 


His  Spirit  beckoned  from  the 
Mountain’s  height, 

You  left  the  plain,  and  soared  mid 
richer  views  ! 

So  Nature  mourned,  when  sunk 
the  First  Day’s  light, 

With  stars,  unseenbefore,  spangling 
her  robes  of  night.’ 

Coleridge’s  Poems ,  ed.  1859,  p.  53. 

1  Johnson’s  room  over  the  gate¬ 
way  is  in  its  fabrick  much  as  it  was 
when  Hannah  More  saw  it;  Shen- 
stone’s  is  no  longer  known. 

2  ‘  From  school  Shenstone  was  sent 
to  Pembroke  College  in  Oxford,  a 
society  which,  for  half  a  century,  has 
been  eminent  for  English  poetry  and 
elegant  literature.’  Works ,  viii.  408. 
For  a  list  of  the  eminent  men  see 
Life ,  i.  75  ;  where  Boswell  also  re¬ 
cords,  that  ‘being  himself  a  poet, 
Johnson  was  peculiarly  happy  in 
mentioning  how  many  of  the  sons  of 
Pembroke  were  poets  ;  adding,  with 
a  smile  of  sportive  triumph,  “  Sir,  we 
are  a  nest  of  singing-birds.”  ’ 

The  College  has  not  been  wanting 
in  scholars  in  later  years.  Among 
my  contemporaries  were  the  late 
Dr.  Edwin  Hatch,  the  learned  theo¬ 
logian  ;  Dr.  Edward  Moore,  the 
editor  of  Dante,  and  Canon  Dixon, 
the  author  of  The  History  of  the 
Church  of  England,  and  of  finer 
poems  than  were  sung  by  most 
of  last-century’s  nest  of  singing- 
birds. 


‘  I  ’ll  call  thee  Hamlet, 
King,  father,  royal  Dane.’ — Act.  i.  Sc.  4. 


Here 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More . 


199 


‘  Here  we  walked,  there  we  played  at  cricket  V  He  ran 
over  with  pleasure  the  history  of  the  juvenile  days  he  passed 
there.  When  we  came  into  the  common  room 2,  we  spied 
a  fine  large  print  of  Johnson,  framed  and  hung  up  that  very 
morning,  with  this  motto:  ‘ And  is  not  Johnson  ours ,  him¬ 
self  a  host'.  Under  which  stared  you  in  the  face,  ‘  From  Miss 
More  s  Sensibility  V  This  little  incident  amused  us  ; — but  alas  ! 
Johnson  looks  very  ill  indeed — spiritless  and  wan.  However, 
he  made  an  effort  to  be  cheerful,  and  I  exerted  myself  much  to 
make  him  so. 

We  are  just  setting  off  to  spend  a  day  or  two  at  the  Bishop  of 
Llandaff’s 4,  near  Wallingford.  But  first  I  must  tell  you  I  am 
engaged  to  dine  on  my  return  with  the  learned  Dr.  Edwards  of 
Jesus  College,  to  meet  Dr.  Johnson,  Thomas  Warton,  and  what¬ 
ever  else  is  most  learned  and  famous  in  this  University 5. 
Memoirs ,  i.  261. 

1  Johnson  must  have  pointed  to 
a  field  outside  the  College  precincts, 
for  within  them  there  was  no  room 
for  cricket. 

2  In  the  Common  Room,  which 
then  stood  in  the  garden,  Johnson, 
in  the  days  when  it  was  open  to  the 
undergraduates,  ‘  used  to  play  at 
draughts  with  Phil  Jones  and  Flud- 
yer.’  Life ,  ii.  444.  By  the  year 
1776,  in  some  of  the  Colleges,  the 
students  were  excluded  from  the 
Common  Room.  Ib .  ii.  443.  The 
Junior  Common  Room  of  Pembroke 
College  kept  its  centenary  in  1894. 

3 ‘Though  purer  flames  thy  hal¬ 
low’d  zeal  inspire 

Than  e’er  were  kindled  at  the 
Muse’s  fire ; 

Thee,  mitred  Chester1,  all  the 
Nine  shall  boast ; 

And  is  not  Johnson  ours?  him¬ 
self  an  host.’ 

In  the  Senior  Common  Room 
there  now  hangs  a  fine  portrait  of 
Johnson  by  Reynolds,  the  gift  of 

1  ‘  Dr.  Beilby  Porteus,  then  Bishop  of  Chester.  See  his  admirable  poem  on 
“  Death.”  ’  Note  by  H.  More . 

Hoole 


the  late  Mr.  Andrew  Spottiswoode. 

See  Life ,  iv.  151,  n.  2. 

4  Shute  Barrington.  Dr.  Watson 
who  succeeded  him,  settling  on  the 
banks  of  Windermere,  did  not  live 
any  nearer  his  diocese,  and  scarcely 
ever  visited  it.  After  he  had  been 
Bishop  twenty-seven  years  he  boasts 
of  holding  ‘  a  confirmation  at  a  place 
where  no  Bishop  had  ever  held  a 
confirmation  before,  Merthyr  Tid- 
vil  ’  With  perfect  complacency  he 
writes  : — ‘  I  have  spent  above  twenty 
years  in  this  delightful  country  (West¬ 
moreland)  ...  I  have  much  recovered 
my  health,  entirely  preserved  my  in¬ 
dependence,  set  an  example  of  a 
spirited  husbandry  to  the  country, 
and  honourably  provided  for  my 
family.’  Life  of  Bishop  Watson ,  i. 
389 ;  ii.  367. 

5  For  the  sudden  rise  this  week  of 
the  ‘  battels  ’  of  many  of  the  Fellows 
and  Scholars  of  Jesus  College  see 
Letters ,  ii.  261,  n.  I. 


200 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


London,  March  29,  1783. 

Hoole  has  just  sent  me  his  preface  to  his  translation  of 
Ariosto,  which  is  coming  out ;  an  expensive  present ;  since 
I  can  now  do  no  less  than  subscribe  for  the  whole  work,  and 
a  guinea  and  a  half  for  a  translation  of  a  book  from  the  original 
is  dearish  \  Saturday  I  went  to  Mrs.  Reynolds’s  to  meet  Sir 
Joshua  and  Dr.  Johnson  ;  the  latter  is  vastly  recovered.  Our 
conversation  ran  very  much  upon  religious  opinions,  chiefly 
those  of  the  Roman  Catholics.  He  took  the  part  of  the  Jesuits, 
and  I  declared  myself  a  Jansenist.  He  was  very  angry  because 
I  quoted  Boileau’s  bon  mot  upon  the  Jesuits,  that  they  had 
lengthened  the  creed  and  shortened  the  decalogue  ;  but  I  con¬ 
tinued  sturdily  to  vindicate  my  old  friends  of  the  Port  Royal. 
On  Tuesday  I  was  at  Mrs.  Vesey’s  assembly,  which  was  too  full 
to  be  very  pleasant.  She  dearly  loves  company;  and  as  she  is 
connected  with  almost  every  thing  that  is  great  in  the  good 
sense  of  the  word,  she  is  always  sure  to  have  too  much. 
I  inquired  after  the  Shipleys,  who  had  promised  to  meet  us 
there,  and  was  told  they  had  just  sent  an  excuse  ;  for  that  Anna 
Maria  and  Sir  William 2  were  at  that  moment  in  the  act  of 
marrying.  They  will  be  now  completely  banished,  but  as  they 
will  be  banished  together,  they  do  not  think  it  a  hardship.  May 
God  bless  them,  and  may  his  stupendous  learning  be  sanctified  ! 
I  went  and  sat  the  other  morning  with  Dr.  Johnson,  who  is  still 
far  from  well.  Our  conversation  was  very  interesting,  but  so 


1  Jeremy  Bentham  says  that 
1  Hoole  got  money  by  plays  and 
translations,  which  he  got  people  to 
subscribe  for.  He  even  asked  me 
for  subscriptions,  though  he  lived  in 
style— asked  me  who  lived  in  beg¬ 
gary !’  Bentham’s  Works,  x.  184. 

Bentham’s  characters  must  be  re¬ 
ceived  with  caution.  Mill  wrote 
on  Oct.  14,  1843,  about  Bowring’s 
Life  of  Bentham  : — ‘  Mr.  Bentham’s 
best  friends  well  knew — I  have  heard 
some  of  those  who  were  most  at¬ 
tached  to  him  lament — his  entire 
incapacity  to  estimate  the  characters 


even  of  those  with  whom  he  asso¬ 
ciated  intimately.  .  .  .  The  opinions 
he  expressed  of  people  depended 
very  much  upon  their  personal  rela¬ 
tions  to  himself.’  Macvey  Napier 
Corres.  p.  441. 

La  Rochefoucauld  says  ( Maximes , 
No.  88): — ‘  L’amour-propre  nous 
augmente  ou  nous  diminue  les  bonnes 
qualites  de  nos  amis,  h  proportion  de 
la  satisfaction  que  nous  avons  d’eux  ; 
et  nous  jugeons  de  leur  merite  par  la 
mani&re  dont  ils  vivent  avec  nous.’ 

2  Sir  William  Jones.  Life ,  iv. 

75?  3* 


many 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


201 


many  people  came  in,  that  I  began  to  feel  foolish,  and  soon 
I  sneaked  off.  He  has  written  some  very  pretty  verses  on  his 
friend  Levett J,  which  he  gave  me,  and  which  I  will  send  you 
when  I  can.  He  was  all  kindness  to  me.  Memoirs ,  i.  278. 

London,  May  5,  1783. 

Saturday  we  had  a  dinner  at  home,  Mrs.  Carter,  Miss  Hamilton, 
the  Kennicotts1 2,  and  Dr.  Johnson.  Poor  Johnson  exerted  him¬ 
self  exceedingly ;  but  he  was  very  ill  and  looked  so  dreadfully, 
that  it  quite  grieved  me  3.  He  is  more  mild  and  complacent 
than  he  used  to  be.  His  sickness  seems  to  have  softened  his 
mind,  without  having  at  all  weakened  it.  I  was  struck  with  the 
mild  radiance  of  this  setting  sun.  We  had  but  a  small  party  of 
such  of  his  friends  as  we  knew  would  be  most  agreeable  to  him, 
and  as  we  were  all  very  attentive,  and  paid  him  the  homage 
he  both  expects  and  deserves,  he  was  very  communicative,  and 
of  course  instructive  and  delightful  in  the  highest  degree. 
Memoirs ,  i.  280. 

April ,  1784. 

I  had  a  very  civil  note  4  from  Johnson  about  a  week  since  ;  it 
was  written  in  good  spirits  ;  and  as  it  was  a  volunteer,  and  not 
an  answer,  it  looks  as  if  he  were  really  better.  He  tells  me  he 
longs  to  see  me,  to  praise  the  Bas  Bleu  5  as  much  as  envy  can 
praise  ; — there’s  for  you  ! 


1  Life,  iv.  137. 

2  Dr.  Kennicott  was  a  Canon  of 
Christ  Church  and  author  of  the 
Collations.  Life ,  ii.  128  ;  Letters ,  ii. 
77,  n.  2. 

3  He  had  just  gone  through  a 
three  days’  course  of  violent  physick¬ 
ing.  Letters ,  ii.  294. 

4  It  has  not  been  published. 

5  On  April  19  he  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Thrale  :  —  ‘Miss  Moore  [sic]  has 
written  a  poem  called  Le  Bas  Bleu  ; 
which  is  in  my  opinion  a  very  great 
performance.  It  wanders  about  in 
manuscript.’  Letters ,  ii.  390.  See 
ib.  n.  4  for  some  extracts  from  it, 
and  Life ,  iv.  108.  Hannah  More, 


in  1825,  mentioning  the  death  of  Sir 
W.  W.  Pepys  says  : — ‘  Our  acquaint¬ 
ance  began  nearly  fifty  years  ago ; 
he  was  the  Lcelius  in  my  little  poem 
The  Bas  Bleu.  As  he  was  the  chief 
ornament,  so  he  was  the  last  sur¬ 
vivor  of  the  select  society  which  gave 
birth  to  that  trifle.’  Memoirs ,  iv. 
238. 

‘  General  Paoli  described  a  Blue¬ 
stocking  meeting  very  well  : — Here, 
four  or  five  old  ladies  talking  formally, 
and  a  priest  (Dr.  Barnard,  Provost 
of  Eton),  with  a  wig  like  the  globe, 
sitting  in  the  middle,  as  if  he  were 
confessing  them.’  Rogers’s  Bos- 
wellia?ia ,  p.  321. 


Did 


202 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


Did  I  tell  you  I  went  to  see  Dr.  Johnson?  Miss  Monckton1 
carried  me,  and  we  paid  him  a  very  long  visit.  He  received  me 
with  the  greatest  kindness  and  affection,  and  as  to  the  Bas  Bleu, 
all  the  flattery  I  ever  received  from  every  body  together  would 
not  make  up  his  sum.  He  said,  but  I  seriously  insist  you  do 
not  tell  any  body,  for  I  am  ashamed  of  writing  it  even  to  you ; — 
he  said  there  was  no  name  in  poetry  that  might  not  be  glad  to 
own  it 2.  You  cannot  imagine  how  I  stared  ;  all  this  from  John¬ 
son,  that  parsimonious  praiser !  I  told  him  I  was  delighted  at 
his  approbation ;  he  answered  quite  characteristically,  ‘  And  so 
you  may,  for  I  give  you  the  opinion  of  a  man  who  does  not 
rate  his  judgment  in  these  things  very  low,  I  can  tell  you.’ 
Memoir s,  i.  319. 

1784. 

My  appointment  at  Oxford  was  to  flirt  with  Dr.  Johnson,  but 
he  was  a  recreant  knight,  and  had  deserted 3.  He  had  been  for 
a  fortnight  at  the  house  of  my  friend  Dr.  Adams,  the  head  of 
Pembroke,  with  Mr.  Boswell ;  but  the  latter  being  obliged  to 
go  to  town,  Johnson  w'as  not  thought  well  enough  to  remain 
behind,  and  afterwards  to  travel  by  himself ;  so  that  he  left  my 
friend’s  house  the  very  day  I  got  thither,  though  they  told  me 
he  did  me  the  honour  to  be  very  angry  and  out  of  humour,  that 
I  did  not  come  so  soon  as  I  had  promised.  I  am  grieved  to  find 
that  his  mind  is  still  a  prey  to  melancholy,  and  that  the  fear  of 
death  operates  on  him  to  the  destruction  of  his  peace.  It  is 
grievous — it  is  unaccountable !  He  who  has  the  Christian  hope 
upon  the  best  foundation  ;  whose  faith  is  strong,  whose  morals 
are  irreproachable 4 !  But  I  am  willing  to  ascribe  it  to  bad 
nerves,  and  bodily  disease.  Memoirs ,  i.  330. 


1  Life ,  iv.  108,  n.  4. 

2  Johnson  said  to  Mrs.  Thrale : — 
‘  I  know  nobody  who  blasts  by  praise 
as  you  do ;  for  whenever  there  is 
exaggerated  praise  everybody  is  set 

against  a  character.5  Ib.  iv.  81.  See 
also  ib.  iii.  225,  where  Mrs.  Thrale 

said : — ‘  I  do  not  know  for  cer¬ 

tain  what  will  please  Dr.  Johnson; 
but  I  know  for  certain  that  it  will 
displease  him  to  praise  anything, 


even  what  he  likes,  extravagantly.’ 

3  He  went  to  Oxford  on  June  3, 
1784,  and  left  it  on  June  19.  Life, 
iv.  283,  31 1. 

4  ‘Mrs.  Adams.  “You  seem,  Sir, 
to  forget  the  merits  of  our  Redeemer.” 
Johnson.  “Madam,  I  do  not  for¬ 
get  the  merits  of  my  Redeemer ;  but 
my  Redeemer  has  said  that  he  will 
set  some  on  his  right  hand  and  some 
on  his  left.” — He  was  in  gloomy 

Poor 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


203 


Hampton,  December ,  1784. 

Poor  dear  Johnson  !  he  is  past  all  hope.  The  dropsy  has 
brought  him  to  the  point  of  death ;  his  legs  are  scarified  :  but 
nothing  will  do.  I  have,  however,  the  comfort  to  hear  that  his 
dread  of  dying  is  in  a  great  measure  subdued  ;  and  now  he 
says  ‘the  bitterness  of  death  is  past1.’  He  sent  the  other  day 
for  Sir  Joshua  ;  and  after  much  serious  conversation  told  him 
he  had  three  favours  to  beg  of  him,  and  he  hoped  he  would  not 
refuse  a  dying  friend,  be  they  what  they  would.  Sir  Joshua 
promised.  The  first  was  that  he  would  never  paint  on  a  Sunday ; 
the  second  that  he  would  forgive  him  thirty  pounds  that  he  had 
lent  him,  as  he  wanted  to  leave  them  to  a  distressed  family;  the 
third  was  that  he  would  read  the  bible  whenever  he  had  an 
opportunity ;  and  that  he  would  never  omit  it  on  a  Sunday. 
There  was  no  difficulty  but  upon  the  first  point  ;  but  at  length 
Sir  Joshua  promised  to  gratify  him  in  all2.  How  delighted 
should  I  be  to  hear  the  dying  discourse  of  this  great  and  good 
man,  especially  now  that  faith  has  subdued  his  fears.  I  wish 
I  could  see  him. 


[As  the  very  interesting  particulars  contained  in  the  following 
letter,  found  among  Mrs.  H.  More’s  papers,  may  not  be  generally 
known,  we  shall  perhaps  be  excused  for  interrupting  the  series  of 
her  letters  by  its  insertion. — Note  by  Roberts.] 

My  dear  Friend, 

I  ought  to  apologize  for  delaying  so  long  to  gratify  your  wishes 
and  fulfil  my  promise,  by  committing  to  paper  a  conversation 


agitation,  and  said,  “  I  ’ll  have  no 
more  on’t.”  ’  Life ,  iv.  300. 

Mrs.  Adams  did  not  outlive  him 
many  months.  Early  in  the  summer 
of  1785  Hannah  More  records  (Me¬ 
moirs,  i.  404) : — ‘  The  wife  of  Dr. 
Adams  is  dead,  and  his  friends  pre¬ 
vailed  on  him  to  set  out  for  London, 
to  be  out  of  the  way  during  the  last 
sad  ceremonies ;  so  he  came  to  the 
hotel  next  to  us,  in  order  for  me  to 
devote  myself  to  him  as  much  as 
possible.  Our  first  meeting  was  very 


affecting.  I  never  saw  anything  so 
meek  and  so  resigned.  But  it  is 
a  heavy  blow  at  almost  eighty.’ 

1  ‘  Surely  the  bitterness  of  death 
is  past.’  1  Sam.  xv.  32. 

‘  The  Doctor,  from  the  time  that 
he  was  certain  his  death  was  near, 
appeared  to  be  perfectly  resigned.’ 
Life ,  iv.  417  ;  ante ,  i.  448  ;  ii.  127. 

2  Boswell  says  that  ‘Sir  Joshua 
readily  acquiesced.’  Life ,  iv.  414. 
The  first  promise  he  did  not  keep. 
Id.  n.  1.  See  ante ,  ii.  5. 


which 


204 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


which  I  had  with  the  late  Rev.  Mr.  Storry,  of  Colchester,  re¬ 
specting  Dr.  Johnson.  I  will  now  however  proceed  at  once 
to  record,  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  the  substance  of  our 
discourse. 

We  were  riding  together  near  Colchester,  when  I  asked 
Mr.  Storry  whether  he  had  ever  heard  that  Dr.  Johnson  ex¬ 
pressed  great  dissatisfaction  with  himself  on  the  approach  of 
death,  and  that  in  reply  to  friends,  who,  in  order  to  comfort  him, 
spoke  of  his  writings  in  defence  of  virtue  and  religion,  he  had 
said,  ‘  admitting  all  you  urge  to  be  true,  how  can  I  tell  when 
I  have  done  enough  V 

Mr.  S.  assured  me  that  what  I  had  just  mentioned  was  perfectly 
correct ;  and  then  added  the  following  interesting  particulars. 

Dr.  Johnson,  said  he,  did  feel  as  you  describe,  and  was  not  to 
be  comforted  by  the  ordinary  topics  of  consolation  which  were 
addressed  to  him.  In  consequence  he  desired  to  see  a  clergyman, 
and  particularly  described  the  views  and  character  of  the  person 
whom  he  wished  to  consult.  After  some  consideration  a  Mr. 
Winstanley  was  named,  and  the  Dr.  requested  Sir  John  Hawkins 
to  write  a  note  in  his  name,  requesting  Mr.  W.’s  attendance  as 
a  minister 2. 

Mr.  W.,  who  was  in  a  very  weak  state  of  health,  was  quite 
overpowered  on  receiving  the  note,  and  felt  appalled  by  the  very 
thought  of  encountering  the  talents  and  learning  of  Dr.  Johnson. 
In  his  embarrassment  he  went  to  his  friend  Colonel  Pownall,  and 
told  him  what  had  happened,  asking,  at  the  same  time,  for  his 
advice  how  to  act.  The  Colonel,  who  was  a  pious  man,  urged 
him  immediately  to  follow  what  appeared  to  be  a  remarkable 
leading  of  providence,  and  for  the  time  argued  his  friend  out  of 
his  nervous  apprehension  :  but  after  he  had  left  Colonel  Pownall, 
Mr.  W.’s  fears  returned  in  so  great  a  degree  as  to  prevail  upon 
him  to  abandon  the  thought  of  a  personal  interview  with  the  Dr. 
He  determined  in  consequence  to  write  him  a  letter :  that  letter 
I  think  Mr.  Storry  said  he  had  seen,— at  least  a  copy  of  it,  and 
part  of  it  he  repeated  to  me  as  follows  : — 

Sir — I  beg  to  acknowledge  the  honour  of  your  note,  and  am 

2  Hawkins  has  no  mention  of  this. 

very 


1  Ante ,  ii.  156. 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


205 


very  sorry  that  the  state  of  my  health  prevents  my  compliance 
with  your  request ;  but  my  nerves  are  so  shattered  that  I  feel 
as  if  I  should  be  quite  confounded  by  your  presence,  and  instead 
of  promoting,  should  only  injure  the  cause  in  which  you  desire 
my  aid.  Permit  me  therefore  to  write  what  I  should  wish  to 
say  were  I  present.  I  can  easily  conceive  what  would  be  the 
subjects  of  your  inquiry.  I  can  conceive  that  the  views  of  your¬ 
self  have  changed  with  your  condition,  and  that  on  the  near 
approach  of  death,  what  you  once  considered  mere  peccadillos 
have  risen  into  mountains  of  guilt,  while  your  best  actions  have 
dwindled  into  nothing.  On  whichever  side  you  look  you  see 
only  positive  transgressions  or  defective  obedience  ;  and  hence, 
in  self-despair,  are  eagerly  inquiring  ‘  What  shall  I  do  to  be 
saved  ?  ’  I  say  to  you,  in  the  language  of  the  Baptist,  ‘  Behold 
the  Lamb  of  God  !  *  &c.  &c. 

When  Sir  John  Hawkins  came  to  this  part  of  Mr.  W.’s  letter, 
the  Dr.  interrupted  him,  anxiously  asking,  *  Does  he  say  so  ? 
Read  it  again  !  Sir  John.’  Sir  John  complied  :  upon  which  the 
Dr.  said,  ‘  I  must  see  that  man  ;  write  again  to  him.’  A  second 
note  was  accordingly  sent :  but  even  this  repeated  solicitation 
could  not  prevail  over  Mr.  Winstanley’s  fears.  He  was  led, 
however,  by  it  to  write  again  to  the  Doctor,  renewing  and  en¬ 
larging  upon  the  subject  of  his  first  letter ;  and  these  communi¬ 
cations,  together  with  the  conversation  of  the  late  Mr.  Latrobe  x, 
who  was  a  particular  friend  of  Dr.  Johnson,  appear  to  have  been 
blessed  by  God  in  bringing  this  great  man  to  the  renunciation  of 
self,  and  a  simple  reliance  on  Jesus  as  his  Saviour,  thus  also 
communicating  to  him  that  peace  which  he  had  found  the  world 
could  not  give,  and  which  when  the  world  was  fading  from  his 
view,  was  to  fill  the  void,  and  dissipate  the  gloom,  even  of  the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death.  Memoirs ,  i.  376. 

H.  More  to  her  sister. 

Hampton2,  1785. 

Mr.  Pepys  wrote  me  a  very  kind  letter  on  the  death  of  Johnson, 
thinking  I  should  be  impatient  to  hear  something  relating  to  his 
last  hours.  Dr.  Brocklesby,  his  physician,  was  with  him ;  he 

2  At  Mrs.  Garrick’s  house. 

said 


1  A  Moravian.  Life,  iv.  410. 


206 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More . 


said  to  him  a  little  before  he  died,  Doctor,  you  are  a  worthy 
man,  and  my  friend,  but  I  am  afraid  you  are  not  a  Christian  ! 
what  can  I  do  better  for  you  than  offer  up  in  your  presence 
a  prayer  to  the  great  God  that  you  may  become  a  Christian  in 
my  sense  of  the  word.  Instantly  he  fell  on  his  knees,  and  put 
up  a  fervent  prayer  ;  when  he  got  up  he  caught  hold  of  his  hand 
with  great  earnestness,  and  cried,  Doctor,  you  do  not  say  Amen. 
The  Doctor  looked  foolishly,  but  after  a  pause,  cried,  Amen ! 
Johnson  said,  My  dear  doctor,  believe  a  dying  man,  there  is  no 
salvation  but  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  Lamb  of  God  ;  go  home, 
write  down  my  prayer,  and  every  word  I  have  said,  and  bring  it 
me  to-morrow.  Brocklesby  did  so  x.  .  .  . 

No  action  of  his  life  became  him  like  the  leaving  it.  His  death 
makes  a  kind  of  era  in  literature1  2  ;  piety  and  goodness  will  not 
easily  find  a  more  able  defender,  and  it  is  delightful  to  see  him 
set,  as  it  were,  his  dying  seal  to  the  professions  of  his  life,  and  to 
the  truth  of  Christianity.  Memoirs ,  i.  392. 

Adelphi,  1785. 

Boswell  tells  me  he  is  printing  anecdotes  of  Johnson,  not  his 
life,  but,  as  he  has  the  vanity  to  call  it,  his  pyramid 3.  I  besought 
his  tenderness  for  our  virtuous  and  most  revered  departed  friend, 
and  begged  he  would  mitigate  some  of  his  asperities.  He  said, 
roughly,  ‘  He  would  not  cut  off  his  claws,  nor  make  a  tiger  a  cat, 
to  please  anybody4.’  It  will,  I  doubt  not,  be  a  very  amusing 
book,  but  I  hope  not  an  indiscreet  one  ;  he  has  great  enthusiasm, 
and  some  fire 5.  Memoirs ,  i.  403. 


1  Life ,  iv.  414,  416  ;  ante ,  ii.  146, 
152. 

2  ‘  He  has  made  a  chasm,  which 
not  only  nothing  can  fill  up,  but 
which  nothing  has  a  tendency  to  fill 
up.’  Life ,  iv.  420. 

3  ‘What  Boswell  was  printing  in 
1785  was  his  fournal  of  a  Tour  to 
the  Hebrides. 

4  Life ,  i.  30. 

5  The  following  is  endorsed  on 
a  letter  addressed  by  Boswell  to 
Lord  Buchan  on  Jan.  5,  1767  : — 
‘  Boswell  was  my  relative  by  his 


mother. ...  In  consequence  of  a  letter 
he  wrote  to  me  I  desired  him  to  call 
at  Mr.  Pitt’s,  and  took  care  to  be 
with  him  when  he  was  introduced. 
.  .  .  Boswell  came  in  the  Corsican 
dress  and  presented  a  letter  from 
Paoli.  Lord  Chatham  smiled,  but 
received  him  very  graciously  in  his 
pompous  manner.  Boswell  had 
genius,  but  wanted  ballast  to  coun¬ 
teract  his  whim.  He  preferred  being 
a  showman  to  keeping  a  shop  of  his 
own.’  Buchan  MSS .  quoted  in 
Croker’s  Boswell ,  x.  122. 

I  remember 


Anecdotes  by  Hannah  More. 


207 


I  remember  that  my  dear  old  Dr.  Johnson  once  asked  me, 

‘  What  was  the  greatest  compliment  you  could  pay  to  an 
author?’  I  replied,  ‘To  quote  him1.’  ‘Thou  art  right,  my 
child,’  said  he.  Memoirs,  iv.  20. 

Dr.  Johnson  once  said  to  me  :  ‘  Never  mind  whether  they 
praise  or  abuse  your  writings ;  anything  is  tolerable,  except 
oblivion2.’  Memoirs,  ii.  169. 

‘  I  have  lost  so  many  of  my  contemporaries  within  the  last 
year  [1824]  that  I  am  ready  to  ask  with  Dr.  Johnson,  “  where  is 
the  world  into  which  I  was  born  ?  ”  ’  Memoirs ,  iv.  203. 

1829  [. February  or  March']. 

Joy,  joy,  joy  to  you,  to  me  !  Joy  to  the  individual  victorious 
Protestant !  Joy  to  the  great  Protestant  cause!  That  dear  valu¬ 
able  Sir  T.  Acland  brought  the  first  news  of  a  great  majority3; 
and  though  I  could  scarcely  doubt  of  our  success,  yet  I  applied 
the  words  once  used  to  me  by  my  old  friend,  Dr.  Johnson,  ‘  My 
dear,  I  must  always  doubt  of  that  which  has  not  yet  happened.’ 
Memoirs ,  iv.  297. 


1  Perhaps  she  got  this  from  The 
Tatler,  No.  205,  where  it  is  said  of 
Dr.  South  : — ‘  The  best  way  to  praise 
this  author  is  to  quote  him.’ 

2  Life ,  iii.  375  ;  v.  273. 

In  1803  writing  of  the  attacks 
made  on  her,  including  ‘  Three  years’ 
monthly  attack  from  the  Anti- 
Jacobin ,’  she  says : — ‘  I  have  to 
lament  that  through  my  want  of  his 
[Baxter’s]  faith  and  piety,  they  had 
nearly  destroyed  my  life.  In  one 
thing  only  I  had  the  advantage, 
I  never  once  replied  to  my  calum¬ 
niators.’  Memoirs,  iii.  203.  To  judge 
by  the  index  of  the  Anti-J acobin  the 
attacks  were  rather  yearly  than 
monthly.  In  the  volume  for  1802, 
p.  429,  she  is  charged  ‘  with  having 
received  the  Sacrament  from  the 
hands  of  Mr.  Jay,  the  pastor  of 


a  dissenting  meeting-house  at  Bath.’ 
The  same  orthodox  Review  quotes 
(1802,  p.  429)  from  a  scurrilous  Life 
of  Hannah  More  a  foul  attack  on 
her,  in  which  it  is  implied  that  at 
the  expense  of  her  chastity  ‘  she  pur¬ 
chased  an  annuity  of  fioo  at  a  very 
easy  rate  ’  [the  italics  are  in  the 
original].  The  canting  reviewer  adds 
that  ‘  such  loose  imputations  disgrace 
the  biographer.’ 

3  The  news  was  the  defeat  of  Peel 
at  the  Oxford  University  election, 
when  the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  he 
brought  in  their  Catholic  Relief  Bill. 
‘The  Convocation,’  wrote  Greville 
on  Feb.  27,  ‘presents  a  most  dis¬ 
graceful  scene  of  riot  and  uproar.’ 
C.  C.  Greville’s  Journals ,  ed.  1874, 
1st  Ser.  i.  177. 


ANECDOTES  AND  REMARKS 

BY  BISHOP  PERCY 


-M- 


[The  following  anecdotes  and  remarks  are  taken  from  the 
third  edition  of  Dr.  Robert  Anderson’s  Life  of  Johnson , 
published  in  1815.  They  had  been  recorded  by  Percy,  in  1805, 
in  an  interleaved  copy  of  the  second  edition.  A  few  of  his 
entries  are  not  worth  reprinting ;  others  I  have  already  in¬ 
corporated  as  notes,  and  so  do  not  include  here.] 


At  Stourbridge  Johnsons  genius  was  so  distinguished  that, 
although  little  better  than  a  school-boy,  he  was  admitted  into 
the  best  company  of  the  place,  and  had  no  common  attention 
paid  to  his  conversation  ;  of  which  remarkable  instances  were 
long  remembered  there x.  He  had  met  even  with  George, 
afterwards  Lord  Lyttleton ;  with  whom,  having  some  colloquial 


disputes,  he  is  supposed  to  have 
so  improperly  influenced  him  in 
man2.  But  this  could  scarcely 
a  boy  of  fifteen,  and,  therefore, 

1  Bridgenorth,  Percy’s  birthplace, 
is  only  a  few  miles  from  Stourbridge. 
He  was  Johnson’s  junior  by  nineteen 
years. 

2  Life ,  iv.  57.  Ante ,  i.  257. 
Percy,  who  was  chaplain  to  the 
King,  devoted  to  the  Duke  of 
Northumberland,  and  whose  wife 
had  been  nurse  to  Prince  Edward 
{ante,  ii.  64),  was  naturally  shocked 
at  Johnson’s  ridicule  of  a  worthy 


conceived  that  prejudice  which 
the  Life  of  that  worthy  noble- 
have  happened  when  he  was 
it  is  probable  he  occasionally 

nobleman  but  a  poor  writer.  John¬ 
son  disliked  moreover  ‘  the  most 
vulgar  Whiggism  ’  of  Lyttelton’s 
History  of  Henry  II.  Life ,  ii.  221. 
Hume  wrote  to  Adam  Smith  on  July 
14,  1767: — ‘Have  you  read  Lord 
Lyttelton  ?  Do  you  not  admire  his 
Whiggery  and  his  Piety;  Qualities 
so  useful  both  for  this  world  and  the 
next?’  MSS.  Royal  Society  of 
Edinburgh. 


visited 


Anecdotes  and  Remarks  by  Bishop  Percy.  209 


visited  Stourbridge,  during  his  residence  at  Birmingham,  before 
he  removed  to  London  L  (Pages  20,  66.) 

Johnson’s  countenance  was  not  so  harsh  and  rugged  as  has 
been  misrepresented,  and  no  otherwise  disfigured  by  the  King’s 
Evil  than  its  having  a  scar  under  one  of  his  jaws,  where  some 
humour  had  been  opened,  but  afterwards  healed.  And  this 
being  only  a  simple  scar,  attended  with  no  discoloration,  excited 

no  disgust1  2.  (Page  1 5.) 

» 

His  countenance,  when  in  a  good  humour,  was  not  disagree¬ 
able.  His  face  clear,  his  complexion  good,  and  his  features 
not  ill-formed,  many  ladies  have  thought  they  might  not  be 
unattractive  when  he  was  young3.  Much  misrepresentation 
has  prevailed  on  this  subject  among  such  as  did  not  personally 
know  him.  (Page  49.) 

That  he  had  some  whimsical  peculiarities  of  the  nature 
described  [by  Boswell,  Life ,  i.  484],  is  certainly  true ;  but  there 
is  no  reason  to  believe  they  proceeded  from  any  superstitious 
motives,  wherein  religion  was  concerned  ;  they  are  rather  to  be 
ascribed  to  his  ‘  mental  distempers.’  (Page  487.) 

If  Johnson  appeared  a  little  unwieldy,  it  was  owing  to  the 
defect  of  his  sight,  and  not  from  corpulency.  (Page  468.) 

Johnson  was  so  extremely  short-sighted4,  that  he  had  no 


1  That  this  is  not  likely  is  shown 
by  a  passage  in  one  of  his  Letters 
(i.  177)  where  speaking  of  a  proposed 
visit  to  Mr.  Lyttelton  at  Hagley, 
near  Stourbridge,  he  says  : — ‘  I 
should  have  had  the  opportunity  .  .  . 
of  recalling  the  images  of  sixteen 
and  reviewing  my  conversations  with 
poor  Ford.’  See  Life ,  i.  49.  He 
seems  to  have  met  Lyttelton  at  Mr. 
Fitzherbert’s.  Ante ,  i.  257. 

2  Life ,  i.  94. 

3  Ante,  i.  344. 

4  ‘  PERCY.  “  But,  my  good  friend, 
you  are  short-sighted,  and  do  not 

VOL.  II.  P 


see  so  well  as  I  do.”  I  wondered  at 
Dr.  Percy’s  venturing  thus.  Dr. 
Johnson  said  nothing  at  the  time ; 
but  inflammable  particles  were  col¬ 
lecting  for  a  cloud  to  burst.  In  a 
little  while  Dr.  Percy  said  something 
more  in  disparagement  of  Pennant. 
Johnson  (pointedly).  “This  is  the 
resentment  of  a  narrow  mind,  be¬ 
cause  he  did  not  find  every  thing  in 
Northumberland.”  Percy  (feeling 
the  stroke).  “  Sir,  you  may  be  as 
rude  as  you  please.”  Johnson. 
“  Hold,  Sir  !  Don’t  talk  of  rudeness  ; 
remember,  Sir,  you  told  me  (puffing 

conception 


210 


Anecdotes  and  Remarks 


conception  of  rural  beauties  ;  and,  therefore,  it  is  not  to  be 
wondered,  that  he  should  prefer  the  conversation  of  the  metro¬ 
polis  to  the  silent  groves  and  views  of  Greenwich 1 ;  which, 
however  delightful,  he  could  not  see.  In  his  Tour  through  the 
Highlands  of  Scotland,  he  has  somewhere  observed,  that  one 
mountain  was  like  another 2 ;  so  utterly  unconscious  was  he  of 
the  wonderful  variety  of  sublime  and  beautiful  scenes  those 
mountains  exhibited.  The  writer  of  this  remark  was  once 
present  when  the  case  of  a  gentleman  was  mentioned,  who, 
having  with  great  taste  and  skill  formed  the  lawns  and  plan¬ 
tations  about  his  house  into  most  beautiful  landscapes,  to 
complete  one  part  of  the  scenery,  was  obliged  to  apply  for 
leave  to  a  neighbour  with  whom  he  was  not  upon  cordial 
terms3;  when  Johnson  made  the  following  remark,  which  at 
once  shews  what  ideas  he  had  of  landscape  improvement,  and 
how  happily  he  applied  the  most  common  incidents  to  moral 
instruction.  ‘  See  how  inordinate  desires  enslave  man !  No 
desire  can  be  more  innocent  than  to  have  a  pretty  garden,  yet, 
indulged  to  excess,  it  has  made  this  poor  man  submit  to  beg 
a  favour  of  his  enemy.’  (Page  520.) 

This  [the  statement  that  ‘when  Johnson  did  eat  it  was 
voraciously  ’]  is  extremely  exaggerated.  He  ate  heartily,  having 
a  good  appetite,  but  not  with  the  voraciousness  described  by 


hard  with  passion  struggling  for  a 
vent)  I  was  short-sighted.  We  have 
done  with  civility.  We  are  to  be  as 
rude  as  we  please.”  Percy.  “  Upon 
my  honour,  Sir,  I  did  not  mean  to 
be  uncivil.”  JOHNSON.  “  I  cannot 
say  so,  Sir  ;  for  I  did  mean  to  be 
uncivil,  thinking  you  had  been  un¬ 
civil.”  5  Life ,  iii.  273. 

1  ‘  We  walked  in  the  evening  in 
Greenwich  Park.  He  asked  me, 
I  suppose,  byway  of  trying  my  dis¬ 
position,  “Is  not  this  very  fine?” 
Having  no  exquisite  relish  of  the 
beauties  of  Nature,  and  being  more 
delighted  with  the  busy  hum  of 


men,  I  answered,  “Yes,  Sir;  but 
not  equal  to  Fleet-street.”  John¬ 
son.  “  You  are  right,  Sir.”  ’  lb.  i. 
461. 

2  ‘  The  hills  exhibit  very  little 

variety,  being  almost  wholly  covered 
with  dark  heath,  and  even  that  seems 
to  be  checked  in  its  growth.’  Works , 
ix.  35.  1  The  Highlands  are  very 

uniform,  for  there  is  little  variety 
in  universal  barrenness.’  Letters,  i. 
250. 

3  Shenstone  perhaps  is  meant, 
who  ‘  was  not  upon  cordial  terms  ; 
with  his  neighbours  the  Lytteltons. 
Works ,  viii.  410 ;  ante ,  ii.  3. 


Mr. 


by  Bishop  Percy. 


21 1 


Mr.  Boswell 1 ;  all  whose  extravagant  accounts  must  be  read 
with  caution  and  abatement.  (Page  47 1.) 

There  was  no  great  cordiality  between  Garrick  and  Johnson; 
and  as  the  latter  kept  him  much  in  awe  when  present,  Garrick, 
when  his  back  was  turned,  repaid  the  restraint  with  ridicule 
of  him  and  his  dulcinea,  which  should  be  read  with  great 
abatement ;  for,  though  Garrick,  at  the  moment,  to  indulge 
a  spirit  of  drollery,  and  to  entertain  the  company,  gave  distorted 
caricatures  of  Mrs.  Johnson  and  her  spouse,  it  would  certainly 
have  shocked  him,  had  he  known  that  these  sportive  distor¬ 
tions  were  to  be  handed  down  to  posterity  as  faithful  pictures. 
By  his  caricature  mimickry  he  could  turn  the  most  respect¬ 
able  characters  and  unaffected  manners  into  ridicule2.  (Pages 

5°,  91-) 

The  extraordinary  prejudice  and  dislike  of  Swift,  manifested 
on  all  occasions  by  Johnson,  whose  political  opinions  coincided 
exactly  with  his 3,  has  been  difficult  to  account  for ;  and  is  there¬ 
fore  attributed  to  his  failing  in  getting  a  degree,  which  Swift 
might  not  chuse  to  solicit,  for  a  reason  given  below.  The  real 
cause  is  believed  to  be  as  follows :  The  Rev.  Dr.  Madden,  who 
distinguished  himself  so  laudably  by  giving  premiums  to  the 
young  students  of  Dublin  College,  for  which  he  had  raised 
a  fund  by  applying  for  contributions  to  the  nobility  and  gentry 
of  Ireland4,  had  solicited  the  same  from  Swift,  when  he  was 


1  ‘  Everything  about  his  character 
and  manners  was  forcible  and  violent; 
there  never  was  any  moderation ; 
many  a  day  did  he  fast,  many  a  year 
did  he  refrain  from  wine ;  but  w'hen 
he  did  eat,  it  was  voraciously  ;  when 
he  did  drink  wine,  it  was  copiously.’ 
Life ,  iv.  72. 

2  He  came  one  day  with  Becket 
the  bookseller  to  Dr.  Burney’s  house. 
‘  Becket  walked  on  a  little  before 

Garrick,  and  he  [Garrick]  was  im¬ 

pudent  enough  to  take  him  off  to  his 
face ,  I  was  going  to  say,  but  to  do 
him  justice  he  did  it  like  a  gentle¬ 


man  behind  his  back.’  Early  Diary 
of  Frances  Burney ,  ii.  283. 

3  Swift,  in  1716,  described  himself 
as  having  been  ‘always  a  Whig  in 
politicks.’  Works,  e d.  1803,  xvi.  156. 

4  Dr.  Madan,  in  1730,  ‘submitted 
to  the  University  of  Dublin  a  scheme 
for  the  encouragment  of  learning  by 
the  establishment  of  premiums,  for 
which  he  proposed  to  raise  a  fund 
amounting  at  the  lowest  to  ^250  per 
annum.’  In  1732  they  were  first 
granted.  Some  fourteen  years  later 
Edmund  Burke  was  awarded  a  pre¬ 
mium.  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.  xxxv.  296. 

1  sinking 


212 


Anecdotes  and  Remarks 


sinking  into  that  morbid  idiocy  which  only  terminated  with 
his  life,  and  was  saving  every  shilling  to  found  his  hospital 
for  lunatics 1 ;  but  his  application  was  refused  with  so  little 
delicacy,  as  left  in  Dr.  Madden  a  rooted  dislike  to  Swift’s 
character,  which  he  communicated  to  Johnson,  whose  friendship 
he  gained  on  the  following  occasion :  Dr.  Madden  wished  to 
address  some  person  of  high  rank,  in  prose  or  verse ;  and, 
desirous  of  having  his  composition  examined  and  corrected  by 
some  writer  of  superior  talents,  had  been  recommended  to 
Johnson,  who  was  at  that  time  in  extreme  indigence ;  and 
having  finished  his  task,  would  probably  have  thought  himself 
well  rewarded  with  a  guinea  or  two,  when,  to  his  great  surprise, 
Dr.  Madden  generously  slipped  ten  guineas  into  his  hand 2. 
This  made  such  an  impression  on  Johnson,  as  led  him  to  adopt 
every  opinion  of  Dr.  Madden,  and  to  resent,  as  warmly  as 
himself,  Swift’s  rough  refusal  of  the  contribution ;  after  which 
the  latter  could  not  decently  request  any  favour  from  the 
University  of  Dublin.  (Page  81.) 

[{ I  am  to  mention  (writes  Boswell,  Life ,  iv.  395)  that  Johnson’s 
conduct,  after  he  came  to  London  and  associated  with  Savage, 
was  not  so  strictly  virtuous  in  one  respect  as  when  he  was 
a  younger  man.  .  .  .  He  owned  to  many  of  his  friends  that  he 


J.  W.  Stubbs’s  Hist.  Univ.  Dublin , 
pp.  198,  200.  In  1740  Madan  set 
afoot  a  premium  scheme  for  the  en¬ 
couragement  of  inventions  in  Ireland. 
Gentleman' s  Magazine ,  1740,  p.  94; 
Life ,  i.  318.  It  was  in  1745  that  he 
published  his  Boulter’s  Monwnent . 
Ib.  It  was  in  1739  that  Swift  was 
asked  to  get  Johnson  the  degree  of 
Master  of  Arts  of  Dublin.  Percy 
makes  a  strange  confusion  in  his 
‘real  cause.’ 

1  Swift  left  the  bulk  of  his  pro¬ 
perty  to  found  a  lunatic  asylum  in 
Dublin.  Works ,  ed.  1803,  xxiv.  236. 
He  ended  his  Verses  o?i  the  Death  of 
Dr.  Swift ,  written  fourteen  years 
before  his  end,  by  saying : — 


‘  He  gave  the  little  wealth  he  had 
To  build  a  house  for  fools  and  mad ; 
And  showed  by  one  satiric  touch 
No  nation  wanted  it  so  much.’ 

lb.  xi.  255. 

2  ‘When  Dr.  Madden  came  to 
London,  he  submitted  that  work 
\Boulter's  Monument\  to  my  casti¬ 
gation  ;  and  I  remember  I  blotted 
a  great  many  lines,  and  might  have 
blotted  many  more,  without  making 
the  poem  worse.  However,  the 
Doctor  was  very  thankful,  and  very 
generous,  for  he  gave  me  ten  guineas, 
which  was  to  me  at  that  time  a  great 
sum.'  Life ,  i.  318.  The  work  was 
‘A  Panegyrical  Poem  ’  in  memory  of 
Archbishop  Boulter.  S ^  post,  p.  267. 

used 


by  Bishop  Percy. 


213 


used  to  take  women  of  the  town  to  taverns  and  hear  them 
relate  their  history.] 

This  seems  to  have  been  suggested  by  Mr.  Boswell,  to  account 
for  Johnson’s  religious  terrors  on  the  approach  of  death;  as 
if  they  proceeded  from  his  having  been  led  by  Savage  to  vicious 
indulgences  with  the  women  of  the  town,  in  his  nocturnal 
rambles1.  This,  if  true,  Johnson  was  not  likely  to  have  con¬ 
fessed  to  Mr.  Boswell,  and  therefore  must  be  received  as  a  pure 
invention  of  his  own.  But  if  Johnson  ever  conversed  with  those 
unfortunate  females,  it  is  believed  to  have  been  in  order  to 
reclaim  them  from  their  dissolute  life,  by  moral  and  religious 
impressions ;  for  to  one  of  his  friends  he  once  related  a  con¬ 
versation  of  that  sort  which  he  had  with  a  young  female  in  the 
street,  and  that  asking  her  what  she  thought  she  was  made 
for,  'she  supposed  to  please  the  gentlemen2.’  His  friend 
intimating  his  surprise,  that  he  should  have  had  communica¬ 
tions  with  street-walkers,  implying  a  suspicion  that  they  were 
not  of  a  moral  tendency,  Johnson  expressed  the  highest 
indignation  that  any  other  motive  could  ever  be  suspected. 
(Page  90.) 

The  account  of  the  manner  in  which  Johnson  compiled  his 
Dictionary,  as  given  by  Mr.  Boswell,  is  confused  and  erroneous3; 
and  a  moment’s  reflection  will  convince  every  person  of  judg¬ 
ment  could  not  be  correct ;  for,  to  write  down  an  alphabetical 


1  Life ,  i.  164. 

2  Hawkins,  who  tells  this  story 

(p.  321),  says: — ‘It  is  too  well 
attested  for  me  to  omit  it.’  Malone 
says  that  ‘  Baretti  used  sometimes 
to  walk  with  Johnson  through  the 
streets  at  night,  and  occasionally 
entered  into  conversation  with  the 
unfortunate  women  who  frequent 
them,  for  the  sake  of  hearing  their 
stories.  It  was  from  a  history  of 
one  of  these,  which  a  girl  told  under 
a  tree  in  the  King’s  Bench  Walk  in 
the  Temple  to  Baretti  and  Johnson, 
that  he  formed  the  story  of  Misella 


in  the  Rambler  ’  [Nos.  170  and  171]. 
Prior’s  Malone ,  p.  16 1. 

3  ‘  The  words,  partly  taken  from 
other  dictionaries,  and  partly  sup¬ 
plied  by  himself,  having  been  first 
written  down  with  spaces  left  be¬ 
tween  them,  he  delivered  in  writing 
their  etymologies,  definitions,  and 
significations.  The  authorities  were 
copied  from  the  books  themselves,  in 
which  he  had  marked  the  passages 
with  a  black-lead  pencil,  the  traces 
of  which  could  easily  be  effaced.’ 
Life ,  i.  188.  See  ante ,  ii.  95. 


arrangement 


214 


Anecdotes  and  Remarks 


arrangement  of  all  the  words  in  the  English  language,  and  then 
hunt  through  the  whole  compass  of  English  literature  for  all  their 
different  significations,  would  have  taken  the  whole  life  of  any 
individual;  but  Johnson,  who,  among  other  peculiarities  of  his 
character,  excelled  most  men  in  contriving  the  best  means  to 
accomplish  any  end,  devised  the  following  mode  for  completing 
his  Dictionary,  as  he  himself  expressly  described  to  the  writer 
of  this  account.  He  began  his  task  by  devoting  his  first  care 
to  a  diligent  perusal  of  all  such  English  writers  as  were  most 
correct  in  their  language x,  and  under  every  sentence  which  he 
meant  to  quote,  he  drew  a  line,  and  noted  in  the  margin  the 
first  letter  of  the  word  under  which  it  was  to  occur.  He  then 
delivered  these  books  to  his  clerks,  who  transcribed  each  sentence 
on  a  separate  slip  of  paper,  and  arranged  the  same  under  the 
word  referred  to.  By  these  means  he  collected  the  several 
words  and  their  different  significations ;  and  when  the  whole 
arrangement  was  alphabetically  formed,  he  gave  the  definitions 
of  their  meanings,  and  collected  their  etymologies  from  Skinner, 
Junius2,  and  other  writers  on  the  subject.  In  completing  his 
alphabetical  arrangement,  he,  no  doubt,  would  recur  to  former 
dictionaries 3,  to  see  if  any  words  had  escaped  him ;  but  this, 
which  Mr.  Boswell  makes  the  first  step  in  the  business,  was  in 
reality  the  last ;  and  it  was  doubtless  to  this  happy  arrangement 
that  Johnson  effected  in  a  few  years  what  employed  the  foreign 
academies  nearly  half  a  century. 


Mr.  Boswell  objects  to  the  title  of  Rambler ,  which  he  says 
was  ill-suited  to  a  series  of  grave  and  moral  discourses,  and  is 
translated  into  Italian  II  Vagabond 'o,  as  also  because  the  same 


1  It  was  in  this  work  that  he  ac¬ 
quired  a  great  part  of  his  extra¬ 
ordinary  knowledge  of  books.  ‘  Dr. 
Adam  Smith  (writes  Boswell)  once 
observed  to  me  that  “Johnson  knew 
more  books  than  any  man  alive.”  ’ 
Life ,  i.  71.  ‘I  never  knew  a  man 
who  studied  hard  (said  Johnson). 
I  conclude,  indeed,  from  the  effects, 
that  some  men  have  studied  hard,  as 
Bentley  and  Clarke.’  Ib.  ‘  Tradition 


in  Cambridge  has  recorded  that  Bent¬ 
ley  said  he  thought  himself  likely  to 
live  to  fourscore,  an  age  long  enough 
to  read  everything  which  was  worth 
reading.’  Monk’s  Bentley ,  ii.  412. 

2  For  Francis  Junius  and  Stephen 
Skinner  see  Life ,  i.  186. 

3  ‘  An  interleaved  copy  of  Bailey’s 
dictionary  in  folio  he  made  the  repo¬ 
sitory  of  the  several  articles.’  Haw¬ 
kins,  p.  175. 


title 


2I5 


by  Bishop  Percy. 


title  was  afterwards  given  to  a  licentious  magazine1.  These 
are  curious  reasons.  But  in  the  first  place,  Mr.  Boswell  assumes, 
that  Johnson  intended  only  to  write  a  series  of  papers  on  ‘grave 
and  moral’  subjects;  whereas,  on  the  contrary,  he  meant  this 
periodical  paper  should  be  open  for  the  reception  of  every 
subject,  serious  or  sprightly,  solemn  or  familiar,  moral  or 
amusing ;  and  therefore  endeavoured  to  find  a  title  as  general 
and  unconfined  as  possible2.  He  acknowledged,  that  ‘The 
Spectator’  was  the  most  happily  chosen  of  all  others,  and 
‘  The  Tatler 5  the  next  to  it ;  and  after  long  consideration  how 
to  fix  a  third  title,  equally  capacious  and  suited  to  his  purpose, 
he  suddenly  thought  upon  The  Rambler ,  and  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  any  other  that  so  exactly  coincided  with  the  motto  he 
has  adopted  in  the  title-page. 

‘Quo  me  cunque  rapit  tempestas  deferor  hospes3 *.’ 

(Page  143.) 

Johnson’s  manner  of  composing  has  not  been  rightly  under¬ 
stood.  He  was  so  extremely  short-sighted,  from  the  defect  in 
his  eyes,  that  writing  was  inconvenient  to  him  ;  for  whenever 
he  wrote,  he  was  obliged  to  hold  the  paper  close  to  his  face. 
He,  therefore,  never  composed  what  we  call  a  foul  draft  on 
paper  of  any  thing  he  published,  but  used  to  revolve  the  subject 
in  his  mind,  and  turn  and  form  every  period,  till  he  had  brought 
the  whole  to  the  highest  correctness  and  the  most  perfect 


1  ‘Johnson  was,  I  think,  not  very 
happy  in  the  choice  of  his  title,  The 
Rambler,  which  certainly  is  not  suited 
to  a  series  of  grave  and  moral  dis¬ 
courses  ;  which  the  Italians  have 
literally,  but  ludicrously  translated 
by  II  Vagabondo ;  and  which  has 
been  lately  assumed  as  the  denomi¬ 
nation  of  a  vehicle  of  licentious  tales, 
The  Rambler's  Magazine l  Life ,  i. 
202.  For  II  Vagabondo  see  ib .  iii. 
411. 

2  In  his  last  Rambler  he  says  : — 

‘  I  have  never  complied  with  tem¬ 

porary  curiosity,  nor  enabled  my 
readers  to  discuss  the  topic  of  the 

day.  .  .  .  They  only  were  expected  to 


peruse  them,  whose  passions  left 
them  leisure  for  abstracted  truth, 
and  whom  virtue  could  please  by  its 
naked  dignity.’ 

3  The  motto  was, 

‘  Nullius  addictus  jurare  in  verba 
magistri, 

Ouo  me  cunque  rapit  tempestas 
deferor  hospes.’ 

Horace,  Efis.  i.  1.  14. 
‘  Sworn  to  no  master,  of  no  sect 
am  I : 

As  drives  the  storm,  at  any  door 
I  knock.’ 

Percy  seems  to  think  that  Johnson 
chose  his  motto  first  and  then  cast 
about  for  a  title  to  suit  it. 

arrangement 


2l6 


Anecdotes  and  Remarks 


arrangement L  Then  his  uncommonly  retentive  memory  enabled 
him  to  deliver  a  whole  essay,  properly  finished,  whenever  it  was 
called  for.  The  writer  of  this  note  has  often  heard  him  humming 
and  forming  periods,  in  low  whispers  to  himself,  when  shallow 
observers  thought  he  was  muttering  prayers,  &c. 2  But  Johnson 
is  well  known  to  have  represented  his  own  practice,  in  the 
following  passage,  in  his  Life  of  Pope 3.  ‘  Of  composition  there 

are  different  methods.  Some  employ  at  once  memory  and 
invention  ;  and,  with  little  intermediate  use  of  the  pen,  form 
and  polish  large  masses  by  continued  meditation,  and  write 
their  productions  only  when,  in  their  own  opinion,  they  have 
completed  them.’  (Page  149.) 

Johnson’s  invectives  against  Scotland,  in  common  conver¬ 
sation,  were  more  in  pleasantry  and  sport  than  real  and 
malignant ;  for  no  man  was  more  visited  by  natives  of  that 
country,  nor  were  there  any  for  whom  he  had  a  greater 
esteem 4.  It  was  to  Dr.  Grainger 5,  a  Scottish  physician,  that 
the  writer  of  this  note  owed  his  first  acquaintance  with  Johnson, 
in  1756.  (Page  285.) 


1  ‘A  certain  apprehension  arising 
from  novelty  made  him  write  his 
first  exercise  at  College  twice  over ; 
but  he  never  took  that  trouble  with 
any  other  composition  ;  and  we  shall 
see  that  his  most  excellent  works 
were  struck  off  at  a  heat,  with 
rapid  exertion.’  Life ,  i.  71. 

It  is  clear  that  he  did  not  always, 
as  Percy  says,  £  turn  and  form  every 
period’  before  he  began  to  write. 
Much  of  his  poetry  was  thus  written 
(/A  i.  192;  ii.  15),  but  not  all.  Thus 
he  said,  ‘  I  allow,  you  may  have 
pleasure  from  writing,  after  it  is  over, 
if  you  have  written  well ;  but  you 
don’t  go  willingly  to  it  again.  I 
know  when  I  have  been  writing 
verses,  I  have  run  my  finger  down 
the  margin,  to  see  how  many  I  had 
made,  and  how  few  I  had  to  make.’ 
lb.  iv.  219.  This  shows  that  he  was 
composing  at  the  desk.  From  his 


account  of  the  way  his  Ramblers  were 
written  it  is  clear  that  he  often  com¬ 
posed  as  he  wrote.  Ib.  iii.  42,  n.  2. 

2  Boswell  apparently  is  aimed  at 
as  one  of  ‘  the  shallow  observers.’ 
He  says  : — ‘  Talking  to  himself  was 
one  of  his  singularities  ever  since 
I  knew  him.  I  was  certain  that  he 
was  frequently  uttering  pious  ejacu¬ 
lations,  for  fragments  of  the  Lord’s 
Prayer  have  been  distinctly  over¬ 
heard.’  lb.  i.  483,  v.  307.  See  also 
post,  p.  273.  Percy  must  have  been 
offended  by  Boswell’s  publication  of 
the  ‘  friendly  scheme  ’  mentioned  in 
the  Life ,  iii.  276.  See  ib.  iii.  278, 
n.  1. 

3  Works ,  viii.  321. 

4  Life ,  ii.  121,  306;  ante ,  i.  264,  n. 

5  The  author  of  the  Sugar-Cane 
{Life,  ii.  454)  practised  as  a  medical 
man;  perhaps  he  is  meant.  He 
knew  Percy.  Letters ,  ii.  70,  n.  3. 

This 


by  Bishop  Percy. 


217 


This  summer  [1764]  Johnson  paid  a  visit  to  Dr.  Percy1,  at  his 
vicarage  house  in  Easton-Mauduit,  near  Wellingborough,  in 
Northamptonshire,  and  spent  parts  of  the  months  of  June,  July, 
and  August  with  him,  accompanied  by  his  friend  Miss  Williams, 
whom  Mrs.  Percy  found  a  very  agreeable  companion  2.  As  poor 
Miss  Williams,  whose  history  is  so  connected  with  that  of 
Johnson,  has  not  had  common  justice  done  her  by  his  biogra¬ 
phers  3,  it  may  be  proper  to  mention,  that,  so  far  from  being 
a  constant  source  and  disquiet  and  vexation  to  him,  although 
she  was  totally  blind  for  the  last  thirty  years  of  her  life,  her 
mind  was  so  well  cultivated,  and  her  conversation  so  agreeable, 
that  she  very  much  enlivened  and  diverted  his  solitary  hours ; 
and  though  there  may  have  happened  some  slight  disagreements 
between  her  and  Mrs.  Desmoulins,  which,  at  the  moment,  dis¬ 
quieted  him 4,  the  friendship  of  Miss  Williams  contributed  very 
much  to  his  comfort  and  happiness.  F6r,  having  been  the 
intimate  friend  of  his  wife  5,  who  had  invited  her  to  his  house, 
she  continued  to  reside  with  him,  and  in  her  he  had  always 
a  conversible  companion ;  who,  whether  at  his  dinners,  or  at  his 
tea-table,  entertained  his  friends  with  her  sensible  conversation  : 
And  being  extremely  clean  and  neat  in  her  person  and  habits, 
she  never  gave  the  least  disgust  by  her  manner  of  eating6;  and 


1  Percy  has  written  this  note  in  the 
third  person. 

2  Life ,  i.  486  ;  Letters ,  i.  91. 

3  Macaulay  joined  these  biogra¬ 
phers  when  he  describes  Johnson  as 
‘  turning  his  house  into  a  place  of 
refuge  for  a  crowd  of  wretched  old 
creatures  who  could  find  no  other 
asylum,’  and  when  he  says  that 
Mrs.  Williams’s  ‘  chief  recommenda¬ 
tions  were  her  blindness  and  her 
poverty.’  Essays,  i.  390 ;  Biography 
of  Johnson ,  Misc.  Writings,  p.  388. 

See  Life,  i.  232,  n.  1,  where  I  show 
how  untrue  this  statement  was.  In 
addition  to  the  passages  cited  I 

would  cite  the  following:  —  ‘Last 
month  died  Miss  Williams,  who  had 

been  to  me  for  thirty  years  in  the 


place  of  a  sister  ;  her  knowledge  was 
great  and  her  conversation  pleasing.’ 
Letters,  ii.  348.  See  ante ,  i.  1 14. 

4  The  disagreements  were  by  no 
means  slight.  They  troubled  him 
while  they  lasted  {Life,  iii.  461  ; 
Letters,  ii.  107,  122,  128),  but  Mrs. 
Desmoulins  did  not  come  to  live 
with  him  till  some  time  after  the 
beginning  of  1777,  when  she  occu¬ 
pied  the  room  assigned  to  Boswell 
{Life,  iii.  104,  222),  and  Miss  Wil¬ 
liams  died  in  September,  1783  {id. 
iv.  235). 

5  lb.  i.  232. 

6  This  is  an  answer  to  Boswell, 
who  had  said  that  Johnson  would 
‘  sometimes  incommode  many  of  his 
friends,  by  carrying  her  with  him  to 

when 


218  Anecdotes  and  Remarks  by  Bishop  Percy. 


when  she  made  tea  for  Johnson  and  his  friends,  conducted  it 
with  so  much  delicacy,  by  gently  touching  the  outside  of  the 
cup,  to  feel,  by  the  heat,  the  tea  as  it  ascended  within,  that  it 
was  rather  matter  of  admiration  than  of  dislike  to  every  attentive 
observer  k  (Page  298.) 

This  most  amiable  and  worthy  gentleman  [Mr.  Thrale]  certainly 
deserved  every  tribute  of  gratitude  from  Johnson  and  his  literary 
friends,  who  were  always  welcome  at  his  hospitable  table  ;  it 
must  therefore  give  us  great  concern  to  see  his  origin  degraded 
by  any  of  them,  in  a  manner  that  might  be  extremely  injurious 
to  his  elegant  and  accomplished  daughters,  if  it  could  not  be 
contradicted  ;  for  his  father  is  represented  to  have  been  a  common 
drayman 2 ;  whereas  he  is  well  known  to  have  been  a  respectable 
citizen,  who  increased  a  fortune,  originally  not  contemptible, 
and  proved  his  mind  had  been  always  liberal,  by  giving  a 
superior  education  to  his  son.  (Page  407.) 

Johnson  was  fond  of  disputation,  and  willing  to  see  what  could 
be  said  on  each  side  of  the  question,  when  a  subject  was  argued  3. 
At  all  other  times,  no  man  had  a  more  scrupulous  regard  for 
truth  ;  from  which,  I  verily  believe,  he  would  not  have  deviated 
to  save  his  life4.  (Page  472.) 


their  houses,  where,  from  her  man¬ 
ner  of  eating,  in  consequence  of  her 
blindness,  she  could  not  but  offend 
the  delicacy  of  persons  of  nice  sen¬ 
sations.’  Life ,  iii.  26. 

1  Boswell  had  not  been  an  atten¬ 
tive  observer,  for  he  says :  —  ‘I 
fancied  she  put  her  finger  down  a 
certain  way  till  she  felt  the  tea  touch 
it.’  lb.  ii.  99. 

2  lb.  i.  490.  ‘  The  first  Independent 
Church  was  opened  in  1616.  In  1632 
this  flock  was  pounced  upon  while 
privately  worshipping  in  the  house  of 
a  brewer’s  clerk,  and  while  eighteen 
escaped,  forty-two  were  thrown  into 
prison.  The  site  of  the  edifice  used 
by  this  Church  when  it  began  to 
worship  publicly  under  the  Common¬ 


wealth  was  afterwards  occupied  by 
Thrale’s  brewery.  It  was  there  that 
the  Austrian  marshal,  Haynau,  was 
mobbed  in  1852  for  having  whipped 
women  in  the  Hungarian  rebellion.’ 
The  Pilgrim  Republic ,  by  John  A. 
Goodwin,  Boston,  1888,  p.  440. 

3  ‘  He  would  begin  thus  : — “  Why, 

Sir,  as  to  the  good  or  evil  of  card¬ 
playing — ”  “  Now  (said  Garrick) 

he  is  thinking  which  side  he  shall 
take.”  ’  Life ,  iii.  23.  See  ante ,  ii.  92, 
where  in  his  praise  of  a  tavern  he 
says  : — *  I  dogmatise  and  am  contra¬ 
dicted,  and  in  this  conflict  of  opinions 
and  sentiments  I  find  delight.’ 

4  Ajite,  i.  225,  297,  458  ;  post ,  p. 
223. 


SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 

ON 

JOHNSONS  CHARACTER 1 


[I  HAVE  been  favoured  (writes  C.  R.  Leslie)  by  Miss  Gwatkin2 
with  a  sight  of  the  following  paper  by  Sir  Joshua  on  the 
character  of  Johnson,  addressed  to  some  mutual  friend  3,  perhaps 
Malone  (or  Boswell) 4.  Everything  Reynolds  wrote,  like  every¬ 
thing  he  painted,  was  destined  to  many  alterations  and  cor¬ 
rections  before  its  appearance  in  public  5.  I  have  transcribed 
the  paper  exactly,  except  in  the  matter  of  punctuation,  and  in 
the  introduction,  now  and  then,  of  a  word,  between  brackets,  to 
complete  the  sense.] 


From  thirty  years’  intimacy  with  Dr.  Johnson6 1  certainly  have 
had  the  means,  if  I  had  equally  the  ability,  of  giving  you  a  true 
and  perfect  idea  of  the  character  and  peculiarities  of  this  extra¬ 
ordinary  man.  The  habits  of  my  profession  unluckily  extend 
to  the  consideration  of  so  much  only  of  character  as  lies  on 


1  From  Life  and  Times  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds  by  C.  R.  Leslie  and 
Tom  Taylor,  1865,  ii.  454. 

2  The  daughter  of  R.  L.  Gwatkin 
and  his  wife  Theophila  Palmer,  who 
was  the  daughter  of  Sir  Joshua’s 
sister  Mary.  Ib.  i.  4,  31 ;  ii.  317. 

3  Burke  and  Goldsmith  fell  into  the 

vulgarism  of  ‘  mutual  friend.’  Life, 

iii.  103,  n.  1 ;  also  Sir  Walter  Scott. 


Lockhart’s  Scott,  ed.  1839,  ii.  63. 

4  Boswell  says  that  Reynolds 
‘  contributed  to  improve  the  second 
edition’  of  the  Life,  i.  10.  He  quotes 
a  paper  with  which  he  had  been 
favoured  by  him.  Ib.  i.  144. 

5  Hence  the  inferiority  of  his  letters 
to  his  other  writings.  Leslie. 

6  Reynolds  returned  from  Italy  in 
1752.  Life,  i.  245. 


the 


220 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  on 


the  surface,  as  is  expressed  in  the  lineaments  of  the  countenance. 
An  attempt  to  go  deeper,  and  investigate  the  peculiar  colouring 
of  his  mind  as  distinguished  from  all  other  minds,  nothing  but 
your  earnest  desire  can  excuse.  Such  as  it  is,  you  may  make 
what  use  of  it  you  please.  Of  his  learning,  and  so  much  of  his 
character  as  is  discoverable  in  his  writings  and  is  open  to  the 
inspection  of  every  person,  nothing  need  be  said. 

I  shall  remark  such  qualities  only  as  his  works  cannot  convey. 
And  among  those  the  most  distinguished  was  his  possessing 
a  mind  which  was,  as  I  may  say,  always  ready  for  use x.  Most 
general  subjects  had  undoubtedly  been  already  discussed  in  the 
course  of  a  studious  thinking  life.  In  this  respect  few  men  ever 
came  better  prepared  into  whatever  company  chance  might 
throw  him,  and  the  love  which  he  had  to  society  gave  him 
a  facility  in  the  practice  of  applying  his  knowledge  of  the  matter 
in  hand  in  which  I  believe  he  was  never  exceeded  by  any  man. 
It  has  been  frequently  observed  that  he  was  a  singular  instance 
of  a  man  who  had  so  much  distinguished  himself  by  his  writings 
that  his  conversation  not  only  supported  his  character  as  an 
author,  but,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  was  superior 1  2.  Those  who 
have  lived  with  the  wits  of  the  age  know  how  rarely  this 
happens.  I  have  had  the  habit  of  thinking  that  this  quality,  as 
well  as  others  of  the  same  kind,  are  possessed  in  consequence  of 
accidental  circumstances  attending  hi-s  life.  What  Dr.  Johnson 
said  a  few  days  before  his  death  of  his  disposition  to  insanity 
was  no  new  discovery  to  those  who  were  intimate  with  him3. 
The  character  of  Imlac 4  in  Rasselas,  I  always  considered  as 
a  comment  on  his  own  conduct,  which  he  himself  practised,  and 


1  ‘  Sir  Joshua  observed  to  me  the 

extraordinary  promptitude  with  which 
Johnson  flew  upon  an  argument.’ 
Lx/e,  ii.  365.  ‘  His  superiority  over 

other  learned  men  consisted  chiefly 
in  what  may  be  called  the  art  of 
thinking,  the  art  of  using  his  mind.’ 
Id.  iv.  427. 

2  1  Burke  (said  Johnson)  is  the 

only  man  whose  common  conversa¬ 

tion  corresponds  with  the  general 


fame  which  he  has  in  the  world.’ 
Ib.  iv.  19.  It  was  no  doubt  the 
excellence  of  Johnson’s  talk  that 
made  Burke  affirm  ‘that  Boswell’s 
Life  was  a  greater  monument  to 
Johnson’s  fame  than  all  his  writings 
put  together.’  Life  of  Mackintosh, 
i.  92. 

3  Life ,  i.  65  ;  iii.  175  ;  v.  215  ; 
Letters ,  i.  39 ;  ante ,  i.  78. 

4  Life,  iii.  6. 


as 


Johnson  s  Character. 


2.2.1 


as  it  now  appears  very  successfully,  since  we  know  he  continued 
to  possess  his  understanding  in  its  full  vigour  to  the  last. 
Solitude  to  him  was  horror ;  nor  would  he  ever  trust  himself 
alone  but  when  employed  in  writing  or  reading1.  He  has  often 
begged  me  to  go  home  with  him  to  prevent  his  being  alone  in 
the  coach 2.  Any  company  was  better  than  none  ;  by  which  he 
connected  himself  with  many  mean  persons  whose  presence  he 
could  command.  For  this  purpose  he  established  a  Club  at 
a  little  ale-house  in  Essex  Street,  composed  of  a  strange 
mixture  of  very  learned  and  very  ingenious  odd  people.  Of 
the  former  were  Dr.  Heberden,  Mr.  Windham,  Mr.  Boswell, 
Mr.  Stevens,  Mr.  Paradise.  Those  of  the  latter  I  do  not  think 
proper  to  enumerate  3.  By  thus  living,  by  necessity,  so  much  in 
company,  more  perhaps  than  any  other  studious  man  whatever, 
he  had  acquired  by  habit,  and  which  habit  alone  can  give,  that 
facility,  and  we  may  add  docility  of  mind,  by  which  he  was  so 
much  distinguished.  Another  circumstance  likewise  contributed 
not  a  little  to  the  power  which  he  had  of  expressing  himself, 
which  was  a  rule,  which  he  said  he  always  practised  on  every 
occasion,  of  speaking  his  best,  whether  the  person  to  whom  he 
addressed  himself  was  or  was  not  capable  of  comprehending 


1  ‘  The  great  business  of  his  life 
(he  told  Reynolds)  was  to  escape 
from  himself ;  this  disposition  he 
considered  as  the  disease  of  his 
mind,  which  nothing  cured  but  com¬ 
pany.’  Life ,  i.  144  ;  ante ,  i.  219,  231. 

2  To  W.  G.  Hamilton  he  said : — 
1 1  am  very  unwilling  to  be  left  alone, 
Sir,  and  therefore  I  go  with  my 
company  down  the  first  pair  of  stairs, 
in  some  hopes  that  they  may,  per¬ 
haps,  return  again.  I  go  with  you, 
Sir,  as  far  as  the  street-door.’  Life> 
i.  490. 

In  a  note  on  King  Henry’s  speech 
in  Henry  V,  Act  iv,  sc.  5,  he  says: — 
‘  There  is  something  very  striking 
and  solemn  in  this  soliloquy,  into 
which  the  king  breaks  immediately 
as  soon  as  he  is  left  alone.  Some¬ 
thing  like  this,  on  less  occasions, 


every  breast  has  felt.  Reflection  and 
seriousness  rush  upon  the  mind  upon 
the  separation  of  a  gay  company, 
and  especially  after  forced  and  un¬ 
willing  merriment.’ 

3  ‘  It  did  not  suit  Sir  Joshua  to  be 
one  of  this  Club.  But  when  I  men¬ 
tion  only  Mr.  Daines  Barrington, 
Dr.  Brocklesby,  Mr.  Murphy,  Mr. 
John  Nichols,  Mr.  Cooke,  Mr.  Jod- 
drel,  Mr.  Paradise,  Dr.  [Bishop] 
Horsley,  Mr.  Windham,  I  shall  suffi¬ 
ciently  obviate  the  misrepresentation 
of  it  by  Sir  John  Hawkins,  as  if  it 
had  been  a  low  ale-house  association, 
by  which  Johnson  was  degraded.’ 
Life ,  iv.  254;  ante ,  i.  440.  Among 
‘the  very  ingenious  odd  people  whom 
Reynolds  did  not  care  to  enumerate  ’ 
was  Barry  the  painter,  who  had  grossly 
attacked  him.  Life ,  iv.  436. 


him 


222 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  on 


him  *.  ‘  If/  says  he,  ‘  I  am  understood,  my  labour  is  not  lost. 

If  it  is  above  their  comprehension,  there  is  some  gratification, 
though  it  is  the  admiration  of  ignorance  ;  ’  and  he  said  those 
were  the  most  sincere  admirers  ;  and  quoted  Baxter,  who  made 
it  a  rule  never  to  preach  a  sermon  without  saying  something 
which  he  knew  was  beyond  the  comprehension  of  his  audience 
in  order  to  inspire  their  admiration1 2.  Dr.  Johnson,  by  this 
continual  practice,  made  that  a  habit  which  was  at  first  an 
exertion ;  for  every  person  who  knew  him  must  have  observed 
that  the  moment  he  was  left  out  of  the  conversation,  whether 
from  his  deafness  or  from  whatever  cause,  but  a  few  minutes 
without  speaking  or  listening,  his  mind  appeared  to  be  pre¬ 
paring  itself.  He  fell  into  a  reverie  accompanied  with  strange 
antic  gestures ;  but  this  he  never  did  when  his  mind  was  engaged 
by  the  conversation.  [These  were]  therefore  improperly  called 
by  - ,  as  well  as  by  others,  convulsions  3,  which  imply  in¬ 

voluntary  contortions  ;  whereas,  a  word  addressed  to  him,  his 
attention  was  recovered.  Sometimes,  indeed,  it  would  be  near 
a  minute  before  he  would  give  an  answer,  looking  as  if  he 
laboured  to  bring  his  mind  to  bear  on  the  question. 

In  arguing  he  did  not  trouble  himself  with  much  circum- 


1  Life,  iv.  183. 

2  ‘  Sir  Joshua  once  observed  to  him 
that  he  had  talked  above  the  capacity 
of  some  people  with  whom  they  had 
been  in  company  together.  “No 
matter,  Sir  (said  Johnson)  ;  they 
consider  it  as  a  compliment  to  be 
talked  to,  as  if  they  were  wiser  than 
they  are.  So  true  is  this,  Sir,  that 
Baxter  made  it  a  rule  in  every  sermon 
that  he  preached  to  say  something 
that  was  above  the  capacity  of  his 
audience.”’  Ib.  iv.  185. 

‘  To  talk  intentionally  in  a  manner 
above  the  comprehension  of  those 
whom  we  address  is  unquestionable 
pedantry  ;  but  surely  complaisance 
requires  that  no  man  should  without 
proof  conclude  his  company  incapable 
of  following  him  to  the  highest  eleva¬ 
tion  of  his  fancy,  or  the  utmost 


extent  of  his  knowledge.’  The  Ram - 
bier,  No.  173. 

Mr.  Francis  Darwin,  writing  of 
Charles  Darwin,  says  :  —  ‘  I  have 
often  heard  him  say  that  he  got  a 
kind  of  satisfaction  in  reading  articles 
[in  Nature\  which  (according  to  him¬ 
self)  he  could  not  understand.  I 
wish  I  could  reproduce  the  manner 
in  which  he  would  laugh  at  himself 
for  it.’  Life  of  Charles  Darwin ,  ed. 
1887,  i.  127. 

3  Boswell  in  his  Tour  to  the  He¬ 
brides  had  called  them  ‘cramps,  or 
convulsive  contractions,  of  the  nature 
of  that  distemper  called  St.  Vitus's 
dance?  Life ,  v.  18.  In  the  Life,  i. 
144,  he  inserts  Reynolds’s  contrary 
opinion.  Tyers  had  called  Johnson 
‘  a  convulsionary .’  See  post,  p.  338. 


locution 


Johnson  s  Character. 


223 


locution,  but  opposed,  directly  and  abruptly,  his  antagonist.  He 
fought  with  all  sorts  [of]  weapons;  [with]  ludicrous  comparisons 
and  similes  ;  [and]  if  all  failed,  with  rudeness  and  overbearing. 
He  thought  it  necessary  never  to  be  worsted  in  argument1.  He 
had  one  virtue  which  I  hold  one  of  the  most  difficult  to  practise. 
After  the  heat  of  contest  was  over,  if  he  had  been  informed  that 
his  antagonist  resented  his  rudeness,  he  was  the  first  to  seek 
after  a  reconciliation 2 ;  and  of  his  virtues  the  most  distinguished 
was  his  love  of  truth 3. 

He  sometimes,  it  must  be  confessed,  covered  his  ignorance  by 
generals  rather  than  appear  ignorant4.  You  will  wonder  to  hear 
a  person  who  loved  him  so  sincerely  speak  thus  freely  of  his 
friend,  but,  you  must  recollect  I  am  not  writing  his  panegyrick, 
but  as  if  upon  oath,  not  only  to  give  the  truth  but  the  whole 
truth. 

His  pride  had  no  meanness  in  it ;  there  was  nothing  little  or 
mean  about  him. 

Truth,  whether  in  great  or  little  matters,  he  held  sacred. 

From  the  violation  of  truth,  he  said,  in  great  things  your  char¬ 
acter  or  your  interest  was  affected,  in  lesser  things  your  pleasure 
is  equally  destroyed.  I  remember,  on  his  relating  some  incident, 
I  added  something  to  his  relation  which  I  supposed  might 
likewise  have  happened  :  ‘  It  would  have  been  a  better  story,’ 
says  he,  £  if  it  had  been  so ;  but  it  was  not  V  Our  friend 
Dr.  Goldsmith  was  not  so  scrupulous  ;  but  he  said  he  only 
indulged  himself  in  white  lyes,  light  as  feathers,  which  he  threw 
up  in  the  air,  and  on  whomever  they  fell,  nobody  was  hurt. 
‘I  wish,’  says  Dr.  Johnson,  { you  would  take  the  trouble  of 
moulting  your  feathers.’ 

I  once  inadvertently  put  him  in  a  situation  from  which  none 
but  a  man  of  perfect  integrity  could  extricate  himself.  I  pointed 
at  some  lines  in  the  Traveller  which  I  told  [him]  I  was  sure  he 
wrote.  He  hesitated  a  little;  during  this  hesitation  I  recollected 
myself,  that  as  I  knew  he  would  not  lye  I  put  him  in  a  cleft 
stick,  and  should  have  had  but  my  due  if  he  had  given  me 

1  Ante ,  i.  390.  3  Ante ,  ii.  218. 

2  Ante ,  i.  212,  453.  4  Life,  v.  124,  n.  4. 

5  Ante,  i.  225  ;  Life,  ii.  433. 


a  rough 


224 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  on 


a  rough  answer ;  but  he  only  said.  £  Sir,  I  did  not  write  them, 
but  that  you  may  not  imagine  that  I  have  wrote  more  than 
I  really  have,  the  utmost  I  have  wrote  in  that  poem,  to  the  best 
of  my  recollection,  is  not  more  than  eighteen  lines  V  It  must 
be  observed  there  was  then  an  opinion  about  town  that  Dr.  John¬ 
son  wrote  the  whole  poem  for  his  friend,  who  was  then  in 
a  manner  an  unknown  writer 1  2.  This  conduct  appears  to  me  to 
be  in  the  highest  degree  correct  and  refined.  If  the  Dr.’s  con¬ 
science  would  have  let  him  told  [sic]  a  lye,  the  matter  would 
have  been  soon  over. 

As  in  his  writings  not  a  line  can  be  found  which  a  saint  would 
wish  to  blot 3,  so  in  his  life  he  would  never  suffer  the  least 
immorality  [or]  indecency  of  conversation,  [or  any  thing]  con¬ 
trary  to  virtue  or  piety  to  proceed  without  a  severe  check,  which 
no  elevation  of  rank  exempted  them  from 4.  .  .  . 

Custom,  or  politeness,  or  courtly  manners  has  authorised 
such  an  Eastern  hyperbolical  style  of  compliment,  that  part  of 
Dr.  Johnson’s  character  for  rudeness  of  manners  must  be  put  to 
the  account  of  this  scrupulous  adherence  to  truth.  His  obstinate 
silence,  whilst  all  the  company  were  in  raptures,  vying  with  each 
other  who  should  pepper  highest,  was  considered  as  rudeness  or 
ill-nature  5. 

During  his  last  illness,  when  all  hope  was  at  an  end,  he 


1  There  were  only  nine  lines  of 
which  he  could  be  sure  they  were  his. 
Life,  ii.  6. 

2  lb.  iii.  252. 

3  ‘  The  highest  praise  which  Thom¬ 
son  has  received  ought  not  to  be 
suppressed ;  it  is  said  by  Lord  Lyt¬ 
telton  that  his  works  contained 

“No  line  which,  dying,  he  could 
wish  to  blot.”  ’ 

Works ,  viii.  379. 

Sir  Walter  Scott  said  : — ‘  I  am 
drawing  near  to  the  close  of  my 
career ;  I  am  fast  shuffling  off  the 
stage.  I  have  been  perhaps  the 
most  voluminous  author  of  the  day ; 
and  it  is  a  comfort  to  me  to  think 
that ...  I  have  written  nothing  which 


on  my  death-bed  I  should  wish 
blotted.’  Lockhart’s  Scott,  ed.  1839, 
x.  196. 

4  Life ,  iii.  40 ;  iv.  295  ;  ante, 
1-  453- 

5  To  Mrs.  Thrale,  who  was  too 
much  given  to  flattery,  he  wrote : — 
‘  If  you  love  me,  and  surely  I  hope 
you  do,  why  should  you  vitiate  my 
mind  with  a  false  opinion  of  its  own 
merit?’  Letters,  i.  221.  ‘Think  as 
well  and  as  kindly  of  me  as  you  can, 
but  do  not  flatter  me.  Cool  recipro¬ 
cations  of  esteem  are  the  great  com¬ 
forts  of  life  ;  hyperbolical  praise  only 
corrupts  the  tongue  of  the  one  and 
the  ear  of  the  other.’  Ib.  ii.  308.  See 
ante,  ii.  179  n. 


appeared 


Johnson  s  Character. 


225 


appeared  to  be  quieter  and  more  resigned.  His  approaching 
dissolution  was  always  present  to  his  mind.  A  few  days  before 
he  died,  Mr.  Langton  and  myself  only  present,  he  said  he  had 
been  a  great  sinner,  but  he  hoped  he  had  given  no  bad  example 
to  his  friends;  that  he  had  some  consolation  in  reflecting  that  he 
had  never  denied  Christ,  and  repeated  the  text  ‘Whoever  denies 
me,  &C.1  *  We  were  both  very  ready  to  assure  him  that  we  were 
conscious  that  we  were  better  and  wiser  from  his  life  and  con¬ 
versation  ;  and  that,  so  far  from  denying  Christ,  he  had  been,  in 
this  age,  his  great  champion  2 3. 

Sometimes  a  flash  of  wit  escaped  him  as  if  involuntary.  He 
was  asked  how  he  liked  the  new  man  that  was  hired  to  watch  by 
him.  ‘  Instead  of  watching,’  says  he,  ‘  he  sleeps  like  a  dormouse ; 
and  when  he  helps  me  to  bed  he  is  awkward  as  a  turnspit  dog 
the  first  time  he  is  put  into  the  wheel  V 

The  Christian  religion  was  with  him  such  a  certain  and  estab¬ 
lished  truth,  that  he  considered  it  as  a  kind  of  profanation  to  hold 
any  argument  about  its  truth 4. 

He  was  not  easily  imposed  upon  by  professions  to  honesty 
and  candour  ;  but  he  appeared  to  have  little  suspicion  of  hypocrisy 
in  religion  5. 

His  passions  were  like  those  of  other  men,  the  difference  only 
lay  in  his  keeping  a  stricter  watch  over  himself6.  In  petty 
circumstances  this  wayward  disposition  appeared,  but  in  greater 
things  he  thought  it  worth  while  to  summon  his  recollection  and 
be  always  on  his  guard.  ...  [To  them  that  loved  him  not]  as 


1  St.  Matthew  x.  33. 

2  Hawkins  records  on  Nov.  29 
(ante,  ii.  127): — 4  Mr.  Langton,  who 
had  spent  the  evening  with  him,  re¬ 
ported  that  his  hopes  were  increased, 
and  that  he  was  much  cheered  upon 
being  reminded  of  the  general  ten¬ 
dency  of  his  writings  and  of  his 
example.’ 

3  Life ,  iv.  41 1. 

4  Nevertheless  he  wished  to  have 
more  ‘  evidence  of  the  spiritual 
world.’  Ib.  ii.  150;  iii.  298;  iv.  298. 

Boswell,  in  the  beginning  of  their 

VOL.  II. 


acquaintance,  led  him  to  talk  on  the 
evidences  of  Christianity.  Ib.  i.  398, 
404,  428,  444,  454.  See  also  v.  109, 
n.  3. 

5  ‘  For  neither  man  nor  angel  can 

discern 

Hypocrisy,  the  only  evil  that 
walks 

Invisible,  except  to  God  alone, 

By  his  permissive  will,  through 
Heav’n  and  Earth.’ 

Paradise  Lost ,  iii.  682. 

6  Life ,  iv.  396  ;  ante,  i.  453. 

Q 


rough 


226 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  on 


rough  as  winter ;  to  those  who  sought  his  love,  as  mild  as 
summer  1 — many  instances  will  readily  occur  to  those  who  knew 
him  intimately,  of  the  guard  which  he  endeavoured  always  to 
keep  over  himself. 

The  prejudices  he  had  to  countries  did  not  extend  to  indi¬ 
viduals.  The  chief  prejudice  in  which  he  indulged  himself  was 
against  Scotland,  though  he  had  the  most  cordial  friendship  with 
individuals  [of  that  country2].  This  he  used  to  vindicate  as 
a  duty.  In  respect  to  Frenchmen  he  rather  laughed  at  himself, 
but  it  was  insurmountable  3.  He  considered  every  foreigner  as 
a  fool  till  they  had  convinced  him  of  the  contrary4.  Against  the 
Irish  he  entertained  no  prejudice,  he  thought  they  united  them¬ 
selves  very  well  with  us 5 :  but  the  Scotch,  when  in  England, 
united  and  made  a  party  by  employing  only  Scotch  servants  and 
Scotch  tradesmen6.  He  held  it  right  for  Englishmen  to  oppose 
a  party  against  them. 

This  reasoning  would  have  more  weight  if  the  numbers  were 
equal.  A  small  body  in  a  larger  has  such  great  disadvantages  that 
I  fear  are  scarce  counterbalanced  by  whatever  little  combination 


1  ‘  Lofty  and  sour  to  them  that 

lov’d  him  not, 

But  to  those  men  that  sought 
him  sweet  as  summer.’ 

Henry  VIII,  Act  iv.  sc.  2. 

2  Ante ,  i.  427-30. 

3  1  An  eminent  foreigner,  when  he 
was  shewn  the  British  Museum,  was 

very  troublesome  with  many  absurd 
inquiries.  “Now  there,  Sir,  (said 
Johnson,)  is  the  difference  between 
an  Englishman  and  a  Frenchman. 
A  Frenchman  must  be  always  talk¬ 
ing,  whether  he  knows  anything  of 
the  matter  or  not ;  an  Englishman 
is  content  to  say  nothing  when  he 
has  nothing  to  say.”’  Life ,  iv.  14. 

‘  He  said,  that  once,  when  he  had 
a  violent  tooth-ach,  a  Frenchman 
accosted  him  thus  : — Ah,  Monsieur , 
yous  etudiez  trop .’  Ib.  iv.  15. 

In  a  note  on  the  scene  between 
Catherine  and  Alice  in  Henry  V 


(Act  iii.  sc.  4)  he  says  : — ‘  Through¬ 
out  the  whole  scene  there  may  be 
found  French  servility  and  French 
vanity.’  In  another  note  on  Cataian 
in  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 
(Act  ii.  sc.  3)  he  says  :  — 1 ‘  To  be  a 
foreigner  was  always  in  England,  and 
I  suppose  everywhere  else,  a  reason 
of  dislike.’ 

4  ‘  One  evening  at  old  Slaughter’s 
coffee-house,  when  a  number  of 
foreigners  were  talking  loud  about 
little  matters,  he  said,  “  Does  not  this 
confirm  old  Meynell’s  observation — 
For  a?iy  thing  I  see ,  foreigners  are 
fools.”’  Life ,  iv.  15. 

5  Ante ,  i.  427  ;  ii.  49  ;  Life ,  ii.  242. 

6  You  are,  to  be  sure,  wonderfully 
free  from  that  nationality,’  said  Gar¬ 
rick  to  Boswell ;  ‘  but  so  it  happens 
that  you  employ  the  only  Scotch 
shoe-black  in  London.'  Life ,  ii.  326. 
See  also  ib.  ii.  12 1,  307,  n.  3. 


they 


Johnson  s  Character . 


227 


they  can  make.  A  general  combination  against  them  would  be 
little  short  of  annihilation. 

We  are  both  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  school1.  For  my  own  part, 
I  acknowledge  the  highest  obligations  to  him.  He  may  be  said 
to  have  formed  my  mind,  and  to  have  brushed  from  it  a  great 
deal  of  rubbish.  Those  very  people  whom  he  has  brought  to 
think  rightly  will  occasionally  criticise  the  opinions  of  their  master 
when  he  nods.  But  we  should  always  recollect  that  it  is  he  him¬ 
self  who  taught  us  and  enabled  us  to  do  it 2. 

The  drawback  of  his  character  is  entertaining  prejudices  on 
very  slight  foundations ;  giving  an  opinion,  perhaps,  first  at 
random,  but  from  its  being  contradicted  he  thinks  himself  obliged 
always  to  support  [it],  or,  if  he  cannot  support,  still  not  to 
acquiesce  [in  the  opposite  opinion].  Of  this  I  remember  an 
instance  of  a  defect  or  forgetfulness  in  his  4  Dictionary.’  I  asked 
him  how  he  came  not  to  correct  it  in  the  second  edition.  4  No,’ 
says  he,  4  they  made  so  much  of  it  that  I  would  not  flatter  them 
by  altering  it 3 !  ’ 

From  passion,  from  the  prevalence  of  his  disposition  for  the 
minute,  he  was  constantly  acting  contrary  to  his  own  reason,  to 
his  principles.  It  was  a  frequent  subject  of  animadversion  with 
him,  how  much  authors  lost  of  the  pleasure  and  comfort  of  life 
by  their  carrying  always  about  them  their  own  consequence  and 
celebrity  4.  Yet  no  man  in  mixed  company, — not  to  his  intimates, 
certainly,  for  that  would  be  an  insupportable  slavery, — ever  acted 
with  more  circumspection  to  his  character  than  himself.  The 
most  light  and  airy  dispute  was  with  him  a  dispute  on  the  arena 5. 


1  Post ,  p.  359  ;  Life,  i.  245,  n.  3  ; 
iii.  369. 

2  4  It  is  not  uncommon  for  those 
who  have  grown  wise  by  the  labour 
of  others  to  add  a  little  of  their  own 
and  overlook  their  masters.’  Works, 
vii.  470. 

3  His  erroneous  definitions  of  lee¬ 

ward  and  pastern  remain  unchanged 

in  the  fourth  edition,  the  last  cor¬ 
rected  by  him.  Life,  i.  293,  n.  2.  In 
retaining  these  definitions,  if  he  did 
not  4  make  error  pernicious  by  de¬ 


liberately  writing  it,’  he  did  his  best 
to  make  it  4  permanent.’  Ib.  iv.  429. 

4  4  Milton,  in  a  letter  to  a  learned 
stranger,  by  whom  he  had  been 
visited,  with  great  reason  congratu¬ 
lates  himself  upon  the  consciousness 
of  being  found  equal  to  his  own 
character,  and  having  preserved  in 
a  private  and  familiar  interview  that 
reputation  which  his  works  had  pro¬ 
cured  him.’  The  Rambler,  No.  14. 

5  4  Speaking  of  Dr.  Campbell,  he 
told  us,  that  he  one  day  called  on 

He 


Q  2 


228  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  on  Johnson  s  Character . 


He  fought  on  every  occasion  as  if  his  whole  reputation  depended 
upon  the  victory  of  the  minute,  and  he  fought  with  all  the 
weapons.  If  he  was  foiled  in  argument  he  had  recourse  to  abuse 
and  rudeness  x.  That  he  was  not  thus  strenuous  for  victory  with 
his  intimates  in  tete-a-tete  conversations  when  there  were  no 
witnesses,  may  be  easily  believed 2.  Indeed,  had  his  conduct 
been  to  them  the  same  as  he  exhibited  to  the  public,  his  friends 
could  never  have  entertained  that  love  and  affection  for  him 
which  they  all  feel  and  profess  for  his  memory. 

But  what  appears  extraordinary  is  that  a  man  who  so  well 
saw,  himself,  the  folly  of  this  ambition  of  shining,  of  speaking,  or 
of  acting  always  according  to  the  character  [he]  imagined  [he] 
possessed  in  the  world,  should  produce  himself  the  greatest 
example  of  a  contrary  conduct. 

Were  I  to  write  the  Life  of  Dr.  Johnson  I  would  labour  this 
point,  to  separate  his  conduct  that  proceeded  from  his  passions, 
and  what  proceeded  from  his  reason,  from  his  natural  disposition 
seen  in  his  quiet  hours 3. 


him,  and  they  talked  of  Tull’s  Hus¬ 
bandry.  Dr.  Campbell  said  some¬ 
thing.  Dr.  Johnson  began  to  dis¬ 
pute  it.  “  Come,  (said  Dr.  Camp¬ 
bell,)  we  do  not  want  to  get  the 
better  of  one  another:  we  want  to 
encrease  each  other’s  ideas.”  Dr. 
Johnson  took  it  in  good  part,  and 
the  conversation  then  went  on  coolly 
and  instructively.’  Life,  v.  324. 

Cobbett,  on  Nov.  20,  1821,  went  on 
‘  a  sort  of  pilgrimage  to  see  the  Farm 
of  Tull  at  Shalborne  in  Berkshire  . . . 
where  Tull  wrote  that  book  which 
does  so  much  honour  to  his  memory.’ 
Rural  Rides ,  ed.  1893,  i.  43,  5. 

1  See  ante,  i.  327  n.,  for  his  ‘re¬ 
course  to  abuse  and  rudeness  ’  in 
arguing  with  Reynolds  one  day  at 
dinner  about  wine.  See  also  ante , 
i*  453* 


2  ‘When  the  meeting  was  over, 
Mr.  Steevens  observed,  that  the  ques¬ 
tion  between  him  and  his  friend  had 
been  agitated  with  rather  too  much 
warmth.  “It  may  be  so,  Sir,  (re¬ 
plied  the  Doctor,)  for  Burke  and 
I  should  have  been  of  one  opinion 
if  we  had  had  no  audience.”  ’  The 
dispute  had  been  about  ‘the  tendency 
of  some  part  of  the  defence  ’  which 
Baretti  was  to  make  on  his  trial  for 
his  life.  Life,  iv.  324. 

3  ‘  If  you  come  to  settle  here,’  he 
said  to  Boswell,  ‘  we  will  have  one 
day  in  the  week  on  which  we  will 
meet  by  ourselves.  That  is  the  hap¬ 
piest  conversation  where  there  is  no 
competition,  no  vanity,  but  a  calm 
quiet  interchange  of  sentiments.’ 
Ib.  ii.  359. 


SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 


ON 


JOHNSON'S  INFLUENCE ' 

- 4-4 - 


I  REMEMBER  Mr.  Burke,  speaking  of  the  Essays  of  Sir  Francis 
Bacon,  said,  he  thought  them  the  best  of  his  works.  Dr.  Johnson 
was  of  opinion,  that  ‘  their  excellence  and  their  value  consisted 
in  being  the  observations  of  a  strong  mind  operating  upon  life ; 
and  in  consequence  you  find  there  what  you  seldom  find  in  other 
books  V  It  is  this  kind  of  excellence  which  gives  a  value  to  the 


1  From  an  unfinished  Discourse, 
found  by  Mr.  Malone  among  Sir 
Joshua’s  loose  papers.  Reynolds’s 
Works ,  ed.  1797,  vol.  i.  Preface, 
p.  19. 

2  ‘  He  told  me  that  Bacon  was  a 
favourite  authour  with  him  ;  but  he 
had  never  read  his  works  till  he  was 
compiling  the  English  Dictionary , 
in  which,  he  said,  I  might  see  Bacon 
very  often  quoted.’  Life ,  iii.  194. 

‘  Bacon  seems  to  have  pleased 
himself  chiefly  with  his  Essays,  which 
come  home  to  men's  busmess  and 
bosoms ,  and  of  which  therefore  he 
declares  his  expectation  that  they 
will  live  as  long  as  books  last l  The 
Rambler ,  No.  106.  It  was  of  the 
Latin  version  that  Bacon  spoke — 
‘  being  in  the  universal  language  it 
may  last  as  long  as  books  last.’ 
Bacon’s  Works ,  ed.  1803,  ii.  252. 


In  the  Adventurer ,  No.  13 1,  John¬ 
son  says  that  Bacon,  ‘after  having 
surveyed  nature  as  a  philosopher, 
had  examined  “men’s  business  and 
bosoms  ”  as  a  statesman.’ 

Boswell  quotes  Johnson  as  say¬ 
ing  : — ‘  Bacon  observes  that  a  stout 
healthy  old  man  is  like  a  tower 
undermined.’  Life,  iv.  277.  This 
passage  I  have  never  found  in 
Bacon,  though  I  have  often  searched 
for  it.  Huet,  Johnson’s  ‘celebrated 
Huetius’  (ib.  iii.  172),  compared  ‘la 
santd  ruineuse  des  vieillards  h  une 
tour  sapde.’  Sainte-Beuve,  Cause- 
ries  de  Lundi ,  ii.  182. 

‘  Dr.  Bentley  used  to  compare 
himself  to  an  old  trunk,  which,  if 
you  let  it  alone,  will  stand  in  a 
corner  a  long  time  ;  but  if  you  jumble 
it  by  moving  it  will  soon  fall  to 
pieces.’  Nichols,  Lit.  Anec.  iv.  351. 

performances 


230 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  on 


performances  of  artists  also.  It  is  the  thoughts  expressed  in  the 
works  of  Michael  Angelo,  Correggio,  Raffaelle,  Parmegiano,  and 
perhaps  some  of  the  old  Gothic  masters  *,  and  not  the  inventions 
of  Pietro  da  Cortona,  Carlo  Marati,  Luca  Giordano,  and  others, 
that  I  might  mention,  which  we  seek  after  with  avidity :  from 
the  former  we  learn  to  think  originally. 

May  I  presume  to  introduce  myself  on  this  occasion,  and  even 
to  mention,  as  an  instance  of  the  truth  of  what  I  have  remarked, 
the  very  Discourses  which  I  have  had  the  honour  of  delivering 
from  this  place  ?  Whatever  merit  they  have,  must  be  imputed, 
in  a  great  measure,  to  the  education  which  I  may  be  said  to  have 
had  under  Dr.  Johnson.  I  do  not  mean  to  say,  though  it 
certainly  would  be  to  the  credit  of  these  Discourses,  if  I  could 
say  it  with  truth,  that  he  contributed  even  a  single  sentiment  to 
them  2 ;  but  he  qualified  my  mind  to  think  justly.  No  man  had, 
like  him,  the  faculty  of  teaching  inferior  minds  the  art  of  thinking. 
Perhaps  other  men  might  have  equal  knowledge ;  but  few  were 
so  communicative.  His  great  pleasure  was  to  talk  to  those  who 
looked  up  to  him.  It  was  here  he  exhibited  his  wonderful 
powers.  In  mixed  company,  and  frequently  in  company  that 
ought  to  have  looked  up  to  him,  many,  thinking  they  had  a 
character  for  learning  to  support,  considered  it  as  beneath  them 
to  enlist  in  the  train  of  his  auditors ;  and  to  such  persons  he 
certainly  did  not  appear  to  advantage,  being  often  impetuous  and 
overbearing  3. 


1  1  Under  the  rudeness  of  Gothic 
essays  a  skilful  painter  will  find 
original,  rational,  and  even  sublime 
inventions.  The  works  of  Albert 
Durer,  Lucas  Van  Leyden,  the 
numerous  inventions  of  Tobias  Stim- 
mer  and  Jost  Ammon  afford  a  rich 
mass  of  genuine  materials,  which 
wrought  up  and  polished  to  elegance 
will  add  copiousness  to  what,  per¬ 
haps,  without  such  aid  could  have 
aspired  only  to  justness  and  pro¬ 
priety.’  Reynolds’s  Sixth  Discourse. 
Works,  1824,  i.  137.  For  Gothic 
see  also  ante ,  i.  478. 


2  He  wrote  the  Dedication.  Life , 
ii.  2,  n.  1,  and  ante ,  ii.  29. 

3  £  On  Saturday,  May  2,  I  dined 
with  him  at  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s, 
where  there  was  a  very  large  com¬ 
pany,  and  a  great  deal  of  conversa¬ 
tion  ;  but  owing  to  some  circum¬ 
stance  which  I  cannot  now  recollect, 
I  have  no  record  of  any  part  of  it, 
except  that  there  were  several  people 
there  by  no  means  of  the  Johnsonian 
school ;  so  that  less  attention  was 
paid  to  him  than  usual,  which  put 
him  out  of  humour ;  and  upon 
some  imaginary  offence  from  me  he 

The 


Johnson  s  Injluence. 


231 


The  desire  of  shining  in  conversation  was  in  him,  indeed,  a 
predominant  passion ;  and  if  it  must  be  attributed  to  vanity,  let 
it  at  the  same  time  be  recollected,  that  it  produced  that  loqua¬ 
ciousness  from  which  his  more  intimate  friends  derived  consider¬ 
able  advantage.  The  observations  which  he  made  on  poetry,  on 
life,  and  on  every  thing  about  us,  I  applied  to  our  art ;  with 
what  success,  others  must  judge.  Perhaps  an  artist  in  his 
studies  should  pursue  the  same  conduct ;  and,  instead  of  patching 
up  a  particular  work  on  the  narrow  plan  of  imitation,  rather  en¬ 
deavour  to  acquire  the  art  and  power  of  thinking.  On  this 
subject  I  have  often  spoken  1 ;  but  it  cannot  be  too  often  repeated, 
that  the  general  power  of  composition  may  be  acquired  ;  and 
when  acquired,  the  artist  may  then  lawfully  take  hints  from  his 
predecessors.  In  reality,  indeed,  it  appears  to  me,  that  a  man 
must  begin  by  the  study  of  others.  Thus  Bacon  became  a  great 
thinker,  by  entering  into  and  making  himself  master  of  the 
thoughts  of  other  men. 


attacked  me  with  such  rudeness  that 
I  was  vexed  and  angry.’  Life,  iii. 
337- 

1  Reynolds’s  Sixth  Discourse  is  on 
imitation.  In  it  he  has  a  phrase 


which  he  probably  retained  from 
Johnson’s  talk: — ‘Some  allowance 
must  be  made  for  what  is  said  in 
the  gaiety  of  rhetoric .’  Reynolds’s 
Works ,  1824,  i.  1 1 8. 


TWO  DIALOGUES 


BY 

SIR  JOSHUA  REYNOLDS 

IN  IMITATION  OF  JOHNSONS  STYLE  OF  CONVERSATION 1 


[The  following  jeu  d' esprit  was  written  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 
to  illustrate  a  remark  which  he  had  made,  that  ‘Dr.  Johnson 


1  ‘These  dialogues  were  printed  in 
1816  from  the  MS.  of  Sir  Joshua, 
by  his  niece,  Lady  Thomond  :  they 
were  not  published,  but  distributed 
by  her  ladyship  to  some  friends  of 
Dr.  Johnson  and  Sir  Joshua.  The 
copy  which  I  have  was  spontaneously 
transmitted  to  me  by  Mrs.  Gwynn, 
the  friend  of  Goldsmith  and  of  John¬ 
son,  whose  early  beauty  is  celebrated 
in  the  first  part  of  this  work  (Vol.  i. 
p.414),  and  who  is  still  distinguished 
for  her  amiable  character  and  high 
mental  accomplishments.  Lady  Tho¬ 
mond,  in  the  prefatory  note,  calls 
this  a  Jeu  T esprit but  I  was  in¬ 
formed  by  the  late  Sir  George 
Beaumont,  who  knew  all  the  parties, 
and  to  whom  Reynolds  himself  gave 
a  copy  of  it,  that  if  the  words  jeu 
d' esprit  were  to  be  understood  to 
imply  that  it  was  altogether  an  in¬ 
vention  of  Sir  Joshua’s,  the  term 
would  be  erroneous.  The  substance, 
and  many  of  the  expressions,  of 
the  dialogues  did  really  occur ;  Sir 


Joshua  did  little  more  than  collect, 
as  if  into  two  conversations,  what 
had  been  uttered  at  rnany ,  and 
heighten  the  effect  by  the  juxta¬ 
position  of  such  discordant  opinions.’ 
— CROKER. 

Mary  Palmer,  the  daughter  of 
Sir  Joshua’s  sister  Mary,  inherited 
the  bulk  of  his  property,  and  married 
the  first  Marquis  of  Thomond.  Les¬ 
lie  and  Taylor’s  Reynolds ,  ii.  635. 
Lady  Thomond  sent  a  copy  of  these 
Dialogues  to  Hannah  More  thirty- 
six  years  after  Johnson’s  death,  who 
replied  : — ‘  I  hear  the  deep-toned 
and  indignant  accents  of  our  friend 
Johnson.  I  hear  the  affected  periods 
of  Gibbon ;  the  natural,  the  easy, 
the  friendly,  the  elegant  language, 
the  polished  sarcasm,  softened  with 
the  sweet  temper  of  Sir  Joshua.’ 
Ib.  ii.  259. 

Miss  Hawkins  published  the  Dia¬ 
logues  in  her  Memoirs ,  i.  109. 

Reynolds  left  Sir  George  Beau¬ 
mont  by  his  will  Sebastian  Bourdon’s 

considered 


Two  Dialogues  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  233 


considered  Garrick  as  his  property,  and  would  never  suffer  any 
one  to  praise  or  abuse  him  but  himself1.’  In  the  first  of  these 
supposed  dialogues,  Sir  Joshua  himself,  by  high  encomiums 
upon  Garrick,  is  represented  as  drawing  down  upon  him  John¬ 
son’s  censure ;  in  the  second,  Mr.  Gibbon,  by  taking  the  opposite 
side,  calls  forth  his  praise  a.]. 


Johnson  against  Garrick. 

Dr.  Johnson  and  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 

REYNOLDS.  Let  me  alone,  I’ll  bring  him  out 3.  (Aside.) 
I  have  been  thinking,  Dr.  Johnson,  this  morning,  on  a  matter 
that  has  puzzled  me  very  much ;  it  is  a  subject  that  I  dare  say 
has  often  passed  in  your  thoughts,  and  though'  I  cannot,  I  dare 
say  you  have  made  up  your  mind  upon  it. 

JOHNSON.  Tilly  fally4!  what  is  all  this  preparation,  what  is 
all  this  mighty  matter  ? 

Rey.  Why,  it  is  a  very  weighty  matter.  The  subject  I  have 
been  thinking  upon  is  predestination  and  freewill,  two  things 
I  cannot  reconcile  together  for  the  life  of  me ;  in  my  opinion, 
Dr.  Johnson,  freewill  and  foreknowledge  cannot  be  reconciled  5. 


Return  of  the  Ark,  now  in  the 
N ational  Gallery.  Leslie  and  T aylor’s 
Reynolds,  ii.  636.  To  him  Wordsworth 
addressed  an  Epistle,  though  Beau¬ 
mont  never  saw  it.  Wordsworth’s 
Works ,  ed.  1857,  iv.  308. 

1  ‘Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  observed, 
with  great  truth,  that  Johnson  con¬ 
sidered  Garrick  to  be  as  it  were  his 
property.  He  would  allow  no  man 
either  to  blame  or  to  praise  Garrick 
in  his  presence,  without  contradicting 
him.’  Life,  iii.  312.  See  also  ante , 
i.  456. 

‘  In  my  conscience  I  believe  the 
baggage  loves  me ;  for  she  never 
speaks  well  of  me  herself,  nor  suffers 
anybody  else  to  rail  at  me.’  Con¬ 
greve,  Old  Bachelor,  Act  i.  sc.  I. 

2  ‘Gibbon  would  scarcely  have  en¬ 


tered  into  such  an  argument.  He 
would  not  have  ‘  trusted  himself  with 
Johnson.’  Life,  ii.  366.  Miss  Burney 
records  his  silence  when  she  met 
him  and  Burke.  Sir  Joshua  explained 
it  by  saying,  ‘  He’s  terribly  afraid 
you’ll  snatch  at  him  for  a  character 
in  your  next  book.’  Memoirs  of  Dr. 
Burney,  ii.  239.  Horace  Walpole, 
when  the  first  volume  of  the  Decline 
and  Fall  appeared,  wrote  ( Letters , 
vi.  31 1),  ‘I  know  Mr.  Gibbon  a  little, 
never  suspected  the  extent  of  his 
talents,  for  he  is  perfectly  modest,  or 
I  want  penetration,  which  I  know  too.’ 

3  For  instances  of  this  see  Letters , 
ii.  439,  and  Life,  iii.  70. 

4  Tillyvally.  Twelfth  Night ,  Act 
ii.  sc.  3. 

5  Boswell  often  worried  Johnson 

Johns. 


234 


Two  Dialogues  by 


JOHNS.  Sir,  it  is  not  of  very  great  importance  what  your 
opinion  is  upon  such  a  question. 

Rey.  But  I  meant  only,  Dr.  Johnson,  to  know  your  opinion. 

JOHNS.  No,  Sir,  you  meant  no  such  thing;  you  meant  only 
to  show  these  gentlemen  that  you  are  not  the  man  they  took 
you  to  be,  but  that  you  think  of  high  matters  sometimes,  and 
that  you  may  have  the  credit  of  having  it  said  that  you  held  an 
argument  with  Sam  Johnson  on  predestination  and  freewill 1 ; 
a  subject  of  that  magnitude  as  to  have  engaged  the  attention  of 
the  world,  to  have  perplexed  the  wisdom  of  man  for  these  two 
thousand  years 2  ;  a  subject  on  which  the  fallen  angels,  who  had 
yet  not  lost  their  original  brightness  3,  find  themselves  in  wander¬ 
ing  mazes  lost*.  That  such  a  subject  could  be  discussed  in  the 
levity  of  convivial  conversation,  is  a  degree  of  absurdity  beyond 
what  is  easily  conceivable  5. 

Rey.  It  is  so,  as  you  say,  to  be  sure ;  I  talked  once  to  our 
friend  Garrick  upon  this  subject,  but  I  remember  we  could  make 
nothing  of  it. 

JOHNS.  O  noble  pair6! 

Rey.  Garrick  was  a  clever  fellow7,  Dr.  J. ;  Garrick,  take  him 
altogether,  was  certainly  a  very  great  man. 

Johns.  Garrick,  Sir,  may  be  a  great  man  in  your  opinion, 


about  free  will,  and  got  such  answers 
as  the  following  :  — ‘  Sir,  we  know  our 
will  is  free,  and  there' s  an  end  on’t.’ 
Life ,  ii.  82.  ‘  All  theory  is  against  the 
freedom  of  the  will ;  all  experience 
for  it.’  Ib.  iii.  291.  ‘  But,  Sir,  as  to 

the  doctrine  of  Necessity,  no  man 
believes  it.’  Ib.  iv.  329.  See  also 
ib.  ii.  104;  v.  1 17  ;  and  post,  p.  256. 

1  Ante ,  i.  285. 

2  ‘Johnson  (with  solemn  vehe¬ 
mence).  “Yes,  Madam;  this  is  a 
question  [the  appearance  of  ghosts] 
which  after  five  thousand  years  is  yet 
undecided ;  a  question,  whether  in 
theology  or  philosophy,  one  of  the 
most  important  that  can  come  before 
the  human  understanding.’  Life , 
iii.  298. 


‘  His  form  had  yet  not  lost 
All  her  original  brightness.’ 

Paradise  Lost,  i.  591. 

4  Ib.  ii.  561. 

5  ‘  I  wonder,  Sir,  how  a  gentleman 
of  your  piety  can  introduce  this  sub¬ 
ject  in  a  mixed  company.’  Life,  ii. 
254. 

6  ‘  Par  nobile  fratrum.’  Horace, 
2  Satires ,  iii.  243. 

7  When  Reynolds  applied  the 
epithet  clever  to  Garrick,  as  a  justifi¬ 
cation  for  discussing  free-will  with 
him,  Johnson  might  have  replied  in 
the  words  of  his  Dictionary : — ‘ Clever 
is  a  low  word,  scarcely  ever  used  but 
in  burlesque  or  conversation ;  and 
applied  to  anything  a  man  likes, 
without  a  settled  meaning.’ 


as 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 


235 


as  far  as  I  know,  but  he  was  not  so  in  mine ;  little  things  are 
great  to  little  men  *. 

Rey.  I  have  heard  you  say,  Dr.  Johnson— - 

JOHNS.  Sir,  you  never  heard  me  say  that  David  Garrick 
was  a  great  man1  2 ;  you  may  have  heard  me  say  that  Garrick 
was  a  good  repeater — of  other  men’s  words — words  put  into 
his  mouth  by  other  men ;  this  makes  but  a  faint  approach 
towards  being  a  great  man. 

Rev.  But  take  Garrick  upon  the  whole,  now,  in  regard  to 
conversation - - 

1 

JOHNS.  Well,  Sir,  in  regard  to  conversation,  I  never  discovered 
in  the  conversation  of  David  Garrick  any  intellectual  energy, 
any  wide  grasp  of  thought,  any  extensive  comprehension  of 
mind,  or  that  he  possessed  any  of  those  powers  to  which  great 
could,  with  any  degree  of  propriety,  be  applied  3. 

Rey.  But  still - 

JOHNS.  Hold,  Sir,  I  have  not  done — there  are,  to  be  sure, 
in  the  laxity  of  colloquial  speech,  various  kinds  of  greatness  ; 
a  man  may  be  a  great  tobacconist,  a  man  may  be  a  great 
painter,  he  may  be  likewise  a  great  mimic:  now  you  may  be 
the  one,  and  Garrick  the  other,  and  yet  neither  of  you  be 
great  men. 

Rev.  But,  Dr.  Johnson— 

JOHNS.  Hold,  Sir,  I  have  often  lamented  how  dangerous  it 


1  1  These  little  things  are  great  to 

little  man.’ 

Goldsmith,  The  Traveller ,  1.  42. 

2  ‘  Nay,  Sir,  a  ballad-singer  is  a 
higher  man,  for  he  does  two  things  ; 
he  repeats  and  he  sings ;  there  is 
both  recitation  and  music  in  his  per¬ 
formance  ;  the  player  only  recites.’ 
Lzfe,  iii.  184. 

3  ‘  Talking  of  Garrick,  Johnson 
said,  “  He  is  the  first  man  in  the 

i 

world  for  sprightly  conversation.”  ’ 
lb.  i.  398. 

‘ Johnson.  “Garrick’s  conversa¬ 
tion  is  gay  and  grotesque.  It  is 
a  dish  of  all  sorts,  but  all  good 


things.  There  is  no  solid  meat  in 
it :  there  is  a  want  of  sentiment  in 

7  1 

it.”  ’  lb.  ii.  464.  Boswell  wrote  on 
March  18,  1775  : — ‘  Mr.  Johnson, 
when  enumerating  our  Club,  observed 
of  some  of  us,  that  they  talked 
from  books, — Langton  in  particular. 
“  Garrick,”  he  said,  “  would  talk 
from  books,  if  he  talked  seriously.” 
“  /,”  said  he,  “  do  not  talk  from 
books  :  yozi  do  not  talk  from  books.” 
This  was  a  compliment  to  my 
originality  ;  but  I  am  afraid  I  have 
not  read  books  enough  to  be  able  to 
talk  from  them.’  Letters  of  Boswell , 
p.  181. 


IS 


236 


Two  Dialogues  by 


is  to  investigate  and  to  discriminate  character,  to  men  who 
have  no  discriminative  powers  J. 

Rey.  But  Garrick,  as  a  companion,  I  heard  you  say — no 
longer  ago  than  last  Wednesday,  at  Mr.  Thrale’s  table - 

Johns.  You  tease  me,  Sir.  Whatever  you  may  have  heard 
me  say,  no  longer  ago  than  last  Wednesday,  at  Mr.  Thrale’s 
table,  I  tell  you  I  do  not  say  so  now :  besides,  as  I  said  before, 
you  may  not  have  understood  me,  you  misapprehended  me, 
you  may  not  have  heard  me. 

Rey.  I  am  very  sure  I  heard  you. 

JOHNS.  Besides,  besides,  Sir,  besides, — do  you  not  know,— are 
you  so  ignorant  as  not  to  know,  that  it  is  the  highest  degree  of 
rudeness  to  quote  a  man  against  himself 2  ? 

Rey.  But  if  you  differ  from  yourself,  and  give  one  opinion 
to-day - 

Johns.  Have  done,  Sir;  the  company,  you  see,  are  tired, 
as  well  as  myself3. 

1  ‘  Dr.  Johnson  (said  Reynolds) 
was  fond  of  discrimination,  which  he 
could  not  show  without  pointing  out- 
the  bad  as  well  as  the  good  in  every 
character ;  and  as  his  friends  were 
those  whose  characters  he  knew  best, 
they  afforded  him  the  best  oppor¬ 
tunity  for  showing  the  acuteness  of 
his  judgment.’  Life ,  ii.  306. 

2  ‘  One  of  the  company  provoked 
him  greatly  by  doing  what  he  could 
least  of  all  bear,  which  was  quoting 
something  of  his  own  writing,  against 
what  he  then  maintained.  “  What, 

Sir,  (cried  the  gentleman,)  do  you 
say  to 

‘  The  busy  day,  the  peaceful  night, 

Unfelt,  uncounted,  glided  by? 5  ” — 

Johnson  finding  himself  thus  pre¬ 
sented  as  giving  an  instance  of  a  man 
who  had  lived  without  uneasiness, 
was  much  offended,  for  he  looked 
upon  such  a  quotation  as  unfair. 


His  anger  burst  out  in  an  unjustifi¬ 
able  retort,  insinuating  that  the 
gentleman’s  remark  was  a  sally  of 
ebriety ;  “  Sir,  there  is  one  passion 
I  would  advise  you  to  command  : 
when  you  have  drunk  out  that  glass, 
don’t  drink  another.”  ’  Id.  iv.  274. 
The  quotation  is  from  the  Lines  on 
Levett.  Ib.  iv.  138. 

3  ‘Johns011  could  not  brook  ap¬ 
pearing  to  be  worsted  in  argument, 
even  when  he  had  taken  the  wrong 
side,  to  shew  the  force  and  dexterity 
of  his  talents.  When,  therefore,  he 
perceived  that  his  opponent  gained 
ground,  he  had  recourse  to  some 
sudden  mode  of  robust  sophistry. 
Once  when  I  was  pressing  upon  him 
with  visible  advantage,  he  stopped 
me  thus  :  “  My  dear  Boswell,  let’s 
have  no  more  of  this  ;  you’ll  make 
nothing  of  it.  I’d  rather  have  you 
whistle  a  Scotch  tune.”  ’  Ib.  iv. 
HI. 


t’other 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 


237 


t’other  side. 

Dr.  Johnsoti  and  Mr.  Gibbon. 

JOHNSON.  No,  Sir;  Garrick’s  fame  was  prodigious,  not  only 
in  England,  but  over  all  Europe  x.  Even  in  Russia1  2  I  have  been 
told  he  was  a  proverb ;  when  any  one  had  repeated  well,  he 
was  called  a  second  Garrick. 

Gibbon.  I  think  he  had  full  as  much  reputation  as  he  de¬ 
served. 

JOHNS.  I  do  not  pretend  to  know,  Sir,  what  your  meaning 
may  be,  by  saying  he  had  as  much  reputation  as  he  deserved  ; 
he  deserved  much,  and  he  had  much. 

Gib.  Why,  surely,  Dr.  Johnson,  his  merit  was  in  small  things 
only,  he  had  none  of  those  qualities  that  make  a  real  great 
man. 

JOHNS.  Sir,  I  as  little  understand  what  your  meaning  may 
be  when  you  speak  of  the  qualities  that  make  a  great  man  ;  it 
is  a  vague  term.  Garrick  was  no  common  man ;  a  man  above 
the  common  size  of  men  may  surely,  without  any  great  impro¬ 
priety,  be  called  a  great  man.  In  my  opinion  he  has  very 
reasonably  fulfilled  the  prophecy  which  he  once  reminded  me 
of  having  made  to  his  mother,  when  she  asked  me  how  little 
David  went  on  at  school 3,  that  I  should  say  to  her,  that  he 
would  come  to  be  hanged,  or  come  to  be  a  great  man.  No, 
Sir,  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the  same  qualities,  united  with 
virtue  or  with  vice,  make  a  hero  or  a  rogue,  a  great  general 
or  a  highwayman.  Now  Garrick,  we  are  sure,  was  never  hanged, 


1  ‘Johnson  said  of  Garrick,  “Sir, 
a  man  who  has  a  nation  to  admire 
him  every  night  may  well  be  expected 
to  be  somewhat  elated.”’  Life ,  iv.  7. 
‘  His  death  eclipsed  the  gaiety  of 
nations.’  Ib.  i.  82. 

2  ‘  Even  in  Russia,  where,  as  Mrs. 
Carter  humorously  observed,  they 
were  just  learning  to  walk  upon  their 
hind  legs,  an  account  was  published 
of  her.’  Memoirs  of  Mrs.  Carter, 

i.  212.  It  was  entitled,  ‘Anecdotes 


au  Sujet  d’une  savante  Fille  en 
Angleterre ;  publiees  dans  le  Sot- 
schinenie,  ou  Melanges  de  Littera- 
ture  en  Russe,  pour  le  mois  de  Mai, 
1759,  p.  470.’  Ib.  ii.  417.  A  trans¬ 
lation  of  foseph  Andrews  was  pub¬ 
lished  in  St.  Petersburgh  in  1772. 
Strangely  enough  a  railway-station 
is  called  in  Russian  Vauxhall,  after 
the  famous  gardens  in  Chelsea. 

3  Garrick  was  nineteen  when  he 
became  Johnson’s  pupil. 


and 


238 


Two  Dialogues  by 


and  in  regard  to  his  being  a  great  man,  you  must  take  the 
whole  man  together.  It  must  be  considered  in  how  many 
things  Garrick  excelled  in  which  every  man  desires  to  excel : 
setting  aside  his  excellence  as  an  actor,  in  which  he  is  acknow¬ 
ledged  to  be  unrivalled :  as  a  man,  as  a  poet,  as  a  convivial 
companion  r,  you  will  find  but  few  his  equals,  and  none  his 
superior.  As  a  man,  he  was  kind,  friendly,  benevolent,  and 
generous. 

Gib.  Of  Garrick’s  generosity  I  never  heard  ;  I  understood  his 
character  to  be  totally  the  reverse,  and  that  he  was  reckoned 
to  have  loved  money. 

JOHNS.  That  he  loved  money,  nobody  will  dispute;  who  does 
not?  but  if  you  mean,  by  loving  money,  that  he  was  parsi¬ 
monious  to  a  fault,  Sir,  you  have  been  misinformed.  To  Foote1 2, 
and  such  scoundrels,  who  circulated  those  reports,  to  such 
profligate  spendthrifts  prudence  is  meanness,  and  economy  is 
avarice.  That  Garrick,  in  early  youth,  was  brought  up  in  strict 
habits  of  economy,  I  believe,  and  that  they  were  necessary, 
I  have  heard  from  himself ;  to  suppose  that  Garrick  might 
inadvertently  act  from  this  habit,  and  be  saving  in  small  things, 
can  be  no  wonder 3 :  but  let  it  be  remembered  at  the  same  time, 
that  if  he  was  frugal  by  habit,  he  was  liberal  from  principle 4 ; 


1  ‘  Garrick  was  a  very  good  man, 

the  cheerfullest  man  of  his  age.’  Life , 
iii.  387.  ‘  Having  expatiated  with 

his  usual  force  and  eloquence  on  his 
extraordinary  eminence  as  an  actor, 
Johnson  concluded:  “And  after  all, 
Madam,  I  thought  him  less  to  be 
envied  on  the  stage  than  at  the  head 
of  a  table.”  ’  lb .  iv.  243. 

2  ‘  F oote  used  to  say  of  Garrick 

that  he  walked  out  with  an  intention 
to  do  a  generous  action  ;  but,  turning 
the  corner  of  a  street,  he  met  with 
the  ghost  of  a  halfpenny,  which 
frightened  him.’  Ib.  iii.  264.  ‘  There 
is  a  witty  satirical  story  of  Foote. 

He  had  a  small  bust  of  Garrick 
placed  upon  his  bureau.  “  You  may 
be  surprised  (said  he)  that  I  allow 
him  to  be  so  near  my  gold  ; — but 


you  will  observe  he  has  no  hands.”  ’ 
Ib.  iv.  224. 

3  ‘  Garrick  (said  Johnson)  was  very 
poor  when  he  began  life  ;  so  when 
he  came  to  have  money  he  probably 
was  very  unskilful  in  giving  away, 
and  saved  when  he  should  not.  But 
Garrick  began  to  be  liberal  as  soon 
as  he  could.’  Ib.  iii.  70.  (He  began 
the  world  with  a  great  hunger  for 
money ;  the  son  of  a  half-pay  officer, 
bred  in  a  family  whose  study  was  to 
make  four-pence  do  as  much  as 
others  made  four-pence  halfpenny 
do.  But  when  he  got  money  he  was 
very  liberal.’  Ib.  iii.  387. 

4  1  Swift  was  frugal  by  inclination, 
but  liberal  by  principle.’  Works , 
viii.  222. 


that 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 


239 


that  when  he  acted  from  reflection,  he  did  what  his  fortune 
enabled  him  to  do,  and  what  was  expected  from  such  a  fortune. 
I  remember  no  instance  of  David’s  parsimony  but  once,  when 
he  stopped  Mrs.  Woffington  from  replenishing  the  tea-pot;  it 
was  already,  he  said,  as  red  as  blood ;  and  this  instance  is 
doubtful,  and  happened  many  years  ago1.  In  the  latter  part 
of  his  life  I  observed  no  blameable  parsimony  in  David  ;  his 
table  was  elegant  and  even  splendid ;  his  house  both  in  town 
and  country,  his  equipage,  and  I  think  all  his  habits  of  life, 
were  such  as  might  be  expected  from  a  man  who  had  acquired 
great  riches 2.  In  regard  to  his  generosity,  which  you  seem  to 
question,  I  shall  only  say,  there  is  no  man  to  whom  I  would 
apply  with  more  confidence  of  success,  for  the  loan  of  two 
hundred  pounds  to  assist  a  common  friend,  than  to  David, 
and  this  too  with  very  little,  if  any,  probability  of  its  being 
repaid 3 *. 

Gib.  You  were  going  to  say  something  of  him  as  a  writer — 
you  don't  rate  him  very  high  as  a  poet. 

JOHNS.  Sir,  a  man  may  be  a  respectable  poet  without  being 
a  Homer,  as  a  man  may  be  a  good  player  without  being 
a  Garrick.  In  the  lighter  kinds  of  poetry,  in  the  appendages 
of  the  drama,  he  was,  if  not  the  first ,  in  the  very  first  class*. 
He  had  a  readiness  and  facility,  a  dexterity  of  mind  that 
appeared  extraordinary  even  to  men  of  experience,  and  who 
are  not  apt  to  wonder  from  ignorance.  Writing  prologues, 
epilogues,  and  epigrams,  he  said  he  considered  as  his  trade 5, 
and  he  was,  what  a  man  should  be,  always,  and  at  all  times, 
ready  at  his  trade.  He  required  two  hours  for  a  prologue 6  or 


1  Reynolds  had  the  anecdote  from 
Johnson,  who  had  been  present  at 
the  tea  party.  Life ,  iii.  264,  n.  4. 

2  ‘  Garrick  might  have  been  much 
better  attacked  for  living  with  more 
splendour  than  is  suitable  to  a  player.’ 
Ib.  iii.  71. 

3  ‘Yes,  Sir,  I  know  that  Garrick 

has  given  away  more  money  than 

any  man  in  England  that  I  am  ac¬ 

quainted  with,  and  that  not  from 


ostentatious  views.’  Ib.  iii.  70.  See 
also  ib.  iii.  264,  n.  3. 

4  ‘As  a  wit,  if  not  first,  in  the  very 

first  line.’ 

Goldsmith’s  Retaliation. 

5  Garrick  said  : — ‘  I  am  a  little 
of  an  epigrammatist  myself,  you 
know.’  Life,  iii.  258. 

6  *  Dryden  (said  Johnson)  has 
written  prologues  superior  to  any 
that  David  Garrick  has  written  ;  but 

epilogue 


240 


Two  Dialogues  by 


epilogue,  and  five  minutes  for  an  epigram.  Once  at  Burke’s 
table  the  company  proposed  a  subject,  and  Garrick  finished 
his  epigram  within  the  time ;  the  same  experiment  was  repeated 
in  the  garden,  and  with  the  same  success. 

Gib.  Garrick  had  some  flippancy  of  parts,  to  be  sure,  and 
was  brisk  and  lively  in  company,  and  by  the  help  of  mimicry 
and  story-telling,  made  himself  a  pleasant  companion ;  but  here 
the  whole  world  gave  the  superiority  to  Foote,  and  Garrick 
himself  appears  to  have  felt  as  if  his  genius  was  rebuked  1  by 
the  superior  powers  of  Foote.  It  has  been  often  observed,  that 
Garrick  never  dared  to  enter  into  competition  with  him,  but 
was  content  to  act  an  under  part  to  bring  Foote  out. 

JOHNS.  That  this  conduct  of  Garrick’s  might  be  interpreted 
by  the  gross  minds  of  Foote  and  his  friends,  as  if  he  was  afraid 
to  encounter  him,  I  can  easily  imagine.  Of  the  natural  supe¬ 
riority  of  Garrick  over  Foote,  this  conduct  is  an  instance :  he 
disdained  entering  into  competition  with  such  a  fellow,  and 
made  him  the  buffoon  of  the  company ;  or,  as  you  say,  brought 
him  out.  And  what  was  at  last  brought  out  but  coarse  jests 
and  vulgar  merriment,  indecency  and  impiety2,  a  relation  of 
events  which,  upon  the  face  of  them,  could  never  have  happened, 
characters  grossly  conceived  and  as  coarsely  represented?  Foote 
was  even  no  mimic ;  he  went  out  of  himself,  it  is  true,  but 
without  going  into  another  man 3 ;  he  was  excelled  by  Garrick 


David  Garrick  has  written  more  good 
prologues  than  Dryden  has  done.’ 
Life ,  ii.  325. 

Horace  Walpole  wrote  of  Garrick 
on  Oct.  16,  1769  (. Letters ,  v.  197) : — 
‘  As  that  man’s  writings  will  be  pre¬ 
served  by  his  name,  who  will  believe 
that  he  was  a  tolerable  actor.  His 
prologues  and  epilogues  are  as  bad 
as  his  Pindarics  and  Pantomimes.’ 

A  few  months  earlier  J.  Sharp 
wrote  to  Garrick  from  Cambridge: — 
‘  I  met  Mr.  Gray  here  at  dinner  last 
Sunday;  he  spoke  handsomely  of 
your  happy  knack  at  epilogues.’ 
Garrick  Corres.  i.  349. 


1  *  Under  him 
My  Genius  is  rebuked.’ 

Macbeth,  Act  iii.  sc.  1,  1.  55. 

2  Johnson  in  a  letter  to  Mrs. 
Thrale  said  : — ‘  Murphy  ought  to 
write  Foote’s  life,  at  least  to  give  the 
world  a  Footeana .’  As  a  marginal 
note  on  this  Baretti  wrote  : — ‘  One 
half  of  it  had  been  a  string  of  ob¬ 
scenities.’  Letters,  ii.  55. 

3  ‘Boswell.  “  I  don’t  think  Foote 
a  good  mimic,  Sir.”  JOHNSON.  “No, 
Sir  ;  his  imitations  are  not  like.  He 
gives  you  something  different  from 
himself,  but  not  the  character  which 
he  means  to  assume.  He  goes  out 

even 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 


241 


even  in  this,  which  is  considered  as  Foote’s  greatest  excellence. 
Garrick,  besides  his  exact  imitation  of  the  voice  and  gesture  of 
his  original,  to  a  degree  of  refinement  of  which  Foote  had  no 
conception,  exhibited  the  mind  and  mode  of  thinking  of  the 
person  imitated.  Besides,  Garrick  confined  his  powers  within 
the  limits  of  decency;  he  had  a  character  to  preserve,  Foote 
had  none x.  By  Foote’s  buffoonery  and  broad-faced  merriment 2, 
private  friendship,  public  decency,  and  every  thing  estimable 
amongst  men,  were  trod  under  foot.  We  all  know  the  differ¬ 
ence  of  their  reception  in  the  world.  No  man,  however  high 
in  rank  or  literature,  but  was  proud  to  know  Garrick,  and  was 
glad  to  have  him  at  his  table 3 ;  no  man  ever  considered  or 
treated  Garrick  as  a  player;  he  may  be  said  to  have  stepped 
out  of  his  own  rank  into  a  higher,  and  by  raising  himself,  he 
raised  the  rank  of  his  profession4.  At  a  convivial  table  his 


of  himself  without  going  into  other 
people.’  Life,  ii.  154.  ‘Foote  being 
mentioned,  Johnson  said,  “  He  is 
not  a  good  mimic.3”  Ib.  iii.  69. 

1  ‘Then  Foote  has  a  great  range 
for  wit ;  he  never  lets  truth  stand 
between  him  and  a  jest,  and  he  is 
sometimes  mighty  coarse.  Garrick 
is  under  many  restraints  from  which 
Foote  is  free.’  Ib.  iii.  69.  ‘Garrick 
is  restrained  by  some  principle,  but 
Foote  has  the  advantage  of  an  un¬ 
limited  range.’  Ib.  v.  391. 

2  ‘Foote  told  me  (writes  Boswell) 
that  Johnson  said  of  him: — “For 
loud,  obstreperous,  broad-faced  mirth 
I  know  not  his  equal.”  ’  Ib.  iii.  70, 
n.  1. 

3  ‘A  gentleman  attacked  Garrick 
for  being  vain.  JOHNSON.  “No 
wonder,  Sir,  that  he  is  vain  ;  a  man 
who  is  perpetually  flattered  in  every 
mode  that  can  be  conceived.  So 
many  bellows  have  blown  the  fire, 
that  one  wonders  he  is  not  by  this 
time  become  a  cinder.”  Boswell. 

“  And  such  bellows  too.  Lord  Mans¬ 
field  with  his  cheeks  like  to  burst : 

VOL.  II.  R 


Lord  Chatham  like  an  Aeolus.  I 
have  read  such  notes  from  them  to 
him,  as  were  enough  to  turn  his 
head.” 3  Ib.  ii.  227. 

Among  the  pall-bearers  at  his 
funeral  were  the  Duke  of  Devonshire, 
Earl  Spencer,  the  Earl  of  Ossory, 
Lord  Camden,  and  Viscount  Palmer¬ 
ston.  The  service  was  performed  by 
the  Bishop  of  Rochester.  The  train 
of  carriages  reached  from  Charing 
Cross  to  the  Abbey.  Murphy’s 
Garrick ,  p.  349. 

4  ‘  Here  is  a  man  who  has  ad¬ 
vanced  the  dignity  of  his  profession. 
Garrick  has  made  a  player  a  higher 
character.’  Life ,  iii.  263. 

A  great  change  had  taken  place 
before  Garrick’s  day.  Pope  wrote 
in  1725  of  the  players  in  Shake¬ 
speare’s  time  : — ‘  They  were  led  into 
the  Buttery  by  the  Steward,  not 
plac’d  at  the  Lord’s  table,  or  Lady’s 
toilette  ;  and  consequently  were  en¬ 
tirely  depriv’d  of  those  advantages 
they  now  enjoy  in  the  familiar  con¬ 
versation  of  our  Nobility,  and  an 
intimacy  (not  to  say  dearness)  with 

exhilarating 


242 


Two  Dialogues  by 


exhilarating  powers  were  unrivalled  ;  he  was  lively,  entertaining, 
quick  in  discerning  the  ridicule  of  life,  and  as  ready  in  repre¬ 
senting  it ;  and  on  graver  subjects  there  were  few  topics  in 
which  he  could  not  bear  his  part.  It  is  injurious  to  the  character 
of  Garrick  to  be  named  in  the  same  breath  with  Foote x.  That 
Foote  was  admitted  sometimes  into  good  company  (to  do  the 
man  what  credit  I  can)  I  will  allow*  but  then  it  was  merely 
to  play  tricks :  Foote’s  merriment  was  that  of  a  buffoon2,  and 
Garrick’s  that  of  a  gentleman 3. 

Gib.  I  have  been  told,  on  the  contrary,  that  Garrick  in 
company  had  not  the  easy  manners  of  a  gentleman. 

JOHNS.  Sir,  I  don’t  know  what  you  may  have  been  told,  or 
what  your  ideas  may  be,  of  the  manners  of  a  gentleman :  Garrick 
had  no  vulgarity  in  his  manners ;  it  is  true  Garrick  had  not 
the  airiness  of  a  fop,  nor  did  he  assume  an  affected  indifference 
to  what  was  passing ;  he  did  not  lounge  from  the  table  to  the 
window,  and  from  thence  to  the  fire,  or,  whilst  you  were 


people  of  the  first  condition.’  John¬ 
son’s  Shakespeare ,  vol.  i.  Preface, 
p.  90. 

1  On  Foote’s  death  Johnson  wrote 
to  Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘Did  you  think  he 
would  so  soon  be  gone?  Life,  says 
Falstaff,  is  a  shuttle.  He  was  a  fine 
fellow  in  his  way ;  and  the  world  is 
really  impoverished  by  his  sinking 
glories.’  Letter s,  ii.  55. 

2  ‘  Boswell.  “  If  Betterton  and 
Foote  were  to  walk  into  this  room, 
you  would  respect  Betterton  much 
more  than  Foote.”  Johnson.  “  If 
Betterton  were  to  walk  into  this 
room  with  Foote,  Foote  would  soon 
drive  him  out  of  it.  Foote,  Sir, 
quatenus  Foote,  has  powers  superior 
to  them  all.”  ’  Life ,  iii.  185. 

How  great  an  actor  Betterton  was 
is  shown  by  a  fine  paper  in  the 
Tatler  (No.  167)  on  his  funeral  in 
Westminster  Abbey.  ‘From  his 
action,’  writes  Steele,  ‘  I  had  received 
more  strong  impressions  of  what  is 
great  and  noble  in  human  nature 


than  from  the  arguments  of  the  most 
solid  philosophers,  or  the  descrip¬ 
tions  of  the  most  charming  poets 
I  had  ever  read.’  Steele  goes  on  to 
quote  the  lines  beginning 
‘To-morrow,  and  to-morrow,  and 
to-morrow,’ 

from  the  text,  I  suppose,  at  that 
time  in  common  use  on  the  stage. 
‘  The  way  to  dusty  death,’  for  in¬ 
stance,  is  changed  ‘to  the  eternal 
night.’ 

Dr.  Warton  says  that  ‘an  old 
frequenter  of  the  theatre’  told  him 
that  on  Betterton’s  last  performance 
‘  many  spectators  got  into  the  play¬ 
house  by  nine  o’clock  in  the  morning, 
and  carried  with  them  provisions  for 
the  day.’  Wart  on’s  Pope’s  Works , 
ed.  1882,  vii.  1 19. 

3  ‘Johnson.  “Garrick’s  great 
distinction  is  his  universality.  He 
can  represent  all  modes  of  life  but 
that  of  an  easy  fine-bred  gentle¬ 
man.”’  Life^v.  126. 


addressing 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds . 


243 


addressing  your  discourse  to  him,  turn  from  you  and  talk  to 
his  next  neighbour,  or  give  any  indication  that  he  was  tired  of 
your  company 1  ;  if  such  manners  form  your  ideas  of  a  fine 
gentleman,  Garrick  certainly  had  them  not. 

Gib.  I  mean  that  Garrick  was  more  overawed  by  the  presence 
of  the  great,  and  more  obsequious  to  rank,  than  Foote,  who 
considered  himself  as  their  equal,  and  treated  them  with  the 
same  familiarity  as  they  treated  each  other. 

JOHNS.  He  did  so,  and  what  did  the  fellow  get  by  it?  The 
grossness  of  his  mind  prevented  him  from  seeing  that  this 
familiarity  was  merely  suffered  as  they  would  play  with  a  dog ; 
he  got  no  ground  by  affecting  to  call  peers  by  their  surnames ; 
the  foolish  fellow  fancied  that  lowering  them  was  raising  himself 
to  their  level ;  this  affectation  of  familiarity  with  the  great, 
this  childish  ambition  of  momentary  exaltation  obtained  by  the 
neglect  of  those  ceremonies  which  custom  has  established  as 
the  barriers  between  one  order  of  society  and  another,  only 
showed  his  folly  and  meanness 2 ;  he  did  not  see  that  by 
encroaching  on  others’  dignity,  he  puts  himself  in  their  power 
either  to  be  repelled  with  helpless  indignity,  or  endured  by 
clemency  and  condescension3.  Garrick,  by  paying  due  respect 
to  rank,  respected  himself ;  what  he  gave  was  returned,  and 


1  ‘There  are  (said  Johnson)  ten 
genteel  women  for  one  genteel  man, 
because  they  are  more  restrained. 
A  man  without  some  degree  of  re¬ 
straint  is  insufferable;  but  we  are 
all  less  restrained  than  women.  Were 
a  woman  sitting  in  company  to  put 
out  her  legs  before  her  as  most  men 
do,  we  should  be  tempted  to  kick 
them  in.’  Life,  iii.  53. 

2  ‘  He  again  insisted  on  the  duty 
of  maintaining  subordination  of  rank. 
“Sir,  I  would  no  more  deprive  a 
nobleman  of  his  respect,  than  of  his 
money.  I  consider  myself  as  acting 
a  part  in  the  great  system  of  society, 
and  I  do  to  others  as  I  would  have 
them  to  do  to  me.  I  would  behave 
to  a  nobleman  as  I  should  expect  he 

would  behave  to  me,  were  I  a  noble¬ 


man  and  he  Sam.  Johnson.  . . .  There 
would  be  a  perpetual  struggle  for 
precedence  were  there  no  fixed  in¬ 
variable  rules  for  the  distinction  of 
rank,  which  creates  no  jealousy  as 
it  is  allowed  to  be  accidental.’  Jb. 
i.  447.  ‘  No  one,’  wrote  Mrs.  Piozzi, 

‘  was  so  careful  to  maintain  the  cere¬ 
monies  of  life  as  Dr.  Johnson.’  Ante , 
i.  318. 

3  *  A  great  mind  disdains  to  hold 
any  thing  by  courtesy,  and  therefore 
never  usurps  what  a  lawful  claimant 
may  take  away.  He  that  encroaches 
on  another’s  dignity  puts  himself  in 
his  power ;  he  is  either  repelled  with 
helpless  indignity,  or  endured  by 
clemency  and  condescension.’  Works, 
viii.  225. 


R  3 


what 


244 


Two  Dialogues  by 


what  was  returned  he  kept  for  ever ;  his  advancement  was  on 
firm  ground,  he  was  recognised  in  public  as  well  as  respected 
in  private,  and  as  no  man  was  ever  more  courted  and  better 
received  by  the  public,  so-  no  man  was  ever  less  spoiled  by 
its  flattery :  Garrick  continued  advancing  to  the  last,  till  he  had 
acquired  every  advantage  that  high  birth  or  title  could  bestow, 
except  the  precedence  of  going  into  a  room  ;  but  when  he  was 
there,  he  was  treated  with  as  much  attention  as  the  first  man 
at  the  table.  It  is  to  the  credit  of  Garrick,  that  he  never  laid 
any  claim  to  this  distinction  ;  it  was  as  voluntarily  allowed  as 
if  it  had  been  his  birthright x.  In  this,  I  confess,  I  looked  on 
David  with  some  degree  of  envy,  not  so  much  for  the  respect 
he  received,  as  for  the  manner  of  its  being  acquired  ;  what  fell 
into  his  lap  unsought,  I  have  been  forced  to  claim.  I  began 
the  world  by  fighting  my  way.  There  was  something  about 
me  that  invited  insult,  or  at  least  a  disposition  to  neglect 2, 
and  I  was  equally  disposed  to  repel  insult  and  to  claim  attention, 
and  I  fear  continue  too  much  in  this  disposition  now  it  is  no 
longer  necessary ;  I  receive  at  present  as  much  favour  as  I  have 
a  right  to  expect.  I  am  not  one  of  the  complainers  of  the 
neglect  of  merit 3. 


1  ‘ 1  then  slily  introduced  Mr.  Gar¬ 
rick’s  fame,  and  his  assuming  the 
airs  of  a  great  man.  JOHNSON. 
“  Sir,  it  is  wonderful  how  little 
Garrick  assumes.  No,  Sir,  Garrick 
fortunam  rev er enter  habet.  Con¬ 
sider,  Sir :  celebrated  men,  such  as 
you  have  mentioned,  have  had  their 
applause  at  a  distance ;  but  Garrick 
had  it  dashed  in  his  face,  sounded  in 
his  ears,  and  went  home  every  night 
with  the  plaudits  of  a  thousand  in 
his  cranium.  Then,  Sir,  Garrick 
did  not  find ,  but  made  his  way  to 
the  tables,  the  levees,  and  almost 
the  bed-chambers  of  the  great. ...  If 
all  this  had  happened  to  me,  I  should 
have  had  a  couple  of  fellows  with 
long  poles  walking  before  me,  to 
knock  down  every  body  that  stood 
in  the  way.  Consider,  if  all  this  had 


happened  to  Cibber  or  Quin,  they’d 
have  jumped  over  the  moon. — Yet 
Garrick  speaks  to  us”  (smiling).’ 
Life ,  iii.  263. 

2  ‘Dr.  Johnson  told  Mr.  Thrale 
once  that  he  had  never  sought  to 
please  till  past  thirty  years  old, 
considering  the  matter  as  hopeless.’ 
Ante ,  i.  318. 

‘  Strange,  however,  it  is  to  consider 
how  few  of  the  great  sought  John¬ 
son’s  society.’  Life,  iv.  117.  ‘I  never 
have  sought  the  world  (he  said  ;)  the 
world  was  not  to  seek  me.’  Ib.  iv. 
172. 

3  ‘Johnson.  “Sir,  I  have  never 
complained  of  the  world ;  nor  do 
I  think  that  I  have  reason  to  com¬ 
plain.  It  is  rather  to  be  wondered 
at  that  I  have  so  much.”  ’  Ib.  iv. 
1 16. 


Gib. 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 


245 


Gib.  Your  pretensions,  Dr.  Johnson,  nobody  will  dispute; 
I  cannot  place  Garrick  on  the  same  footing :  your  reputation 
will  continue  increasing  after  your  death,  when  Garrick  will 
be  totally  forgotten ;  you  will  be  for  ever  considered  as  a 
classic - 

JOHNS.  Enough,  Sir,  enough  ;  the  company  would  be  better 
pleased  to  see  us  quarrel  than  bandying  compliments  \ 

Gib.  But  you  must  allow,  Dr.  Johnson,  that  Garrick  was  too 
much  a  slave  to  fame,  or  rather  to  the  mean  ambition  of  living 
with  the  great,  terribly  afraid  of  making  himself  cheap  even  with 
them  ;  by  which  he  debarred  himself  of  much  pleasant  society. 
Employing  so  much  attention,  and  so  much  management  upon 
such  little  things,  implies,  I  think,  a  little  mind.  It  was  observed 
by  his  friend  Colman,  that  he  never  went  into  company  but  with 
a  plot  how  to  get  out  of  it 2 ;  he  was  every  minute  called  out, 
and  went  off  or  returned  as  there  was  or  was  not  a  probability  of 
his  shining. 

JOHNS.  In  regard  to  his  mean  ambition,  as  you  call  it,  of 
living  with  the  great,  what  was  the  boast  of  Pope 3,  and  is  every 


1  1  It  was  not  for  me  to  bandy 
civilities  with  my  Sovereign.’  Life , 
if  35- 

‘  Come,  Sir,  let’s  have  no  more  of 
it.  We  offended  one  another  by  our 
contention ;  let  us  not  offend  the 
company  by  our  compliments.’  Id. 
iv.  336. 

2  ‘  Malone  said  that  Garrick  always 
took  care  to  leave  company  with  a 
good  impression  in  his  favour.  After 
he  had  told  some  good  story,  or 
defeated  an  antagonist  by  wit  or 
raillery,  he  often  disappointed  people 
who  hoped  that  he  would  continue 
to  entertain  them.  But  he  was  so 
artificial  that  he  could  break  away 
in  the  midst  of  the  highest  festivity, 
merely  in  order  to  secure  the  im¬ 
pression  he  had  made.  On  this  part 
of  his  character  it  was  well  said  by 
Colman,  that  he  never  came  into 
company  without  laying  a  plot  for  an 


escape  out  of  it.’  Prior’s  Malone , 
p.  376.  Reynolds  described  to 
Malone  ‘  the  plots  Garrick  laid  for 
merriment,’  and  how  one  of  them 
so  utterly  failed  that,  having  Fox, 
Burke,  Gibbon,  Sheridan,  Beauclerc, 
and  Reynolds  as  his  guests,  he  made 
it  ‘  one  of  the  most  vapid  days  they 
had  ever  spent.’  Ib.  p.  417. 

‘  That  “  artifice  ”  of  his  has  left 
such  an  impression  in  the  theatre, 
that  the  phrase  “as  deep  as  Garrick” 
is  still  current  stage  slang.’  Leslie 
and  Taylor’s  Reynolds,  ii.  219. 

3  Johnson  says  of  Pope  : — ‘  Next 
to  the  pleasure  of  contemplating  his 
possessions,  seems  to  be  that  of 
enumerating  the  men  of  high  rank 
with  whom  he  was  acquainted.’ 
Works ,  viii.  313.  ‘  His  scorn  of  the 

great  is  too  often  repeated  to  be  real ; 
no  man  thinks  much  of  that  which 
he  despises.’  Ib.  p.  316. 


man’s 


246 


Two  Dialogues  by 


man’s  wish,  can  be  no  reproach  to  Garrick ;  he  who  says  he 
despises  it  knows  he  lies1.  That  Garrick  husbanded  his  fame, 
the  fame  which  he  had  justly  acquired  both  at  the  theatre  and 
at  the  table,  is  not  denied  ;  but  where  is  the  blame,  either  in  the 
one  or  the  other,  of  leaving  as  little  as  he  could  to  chance? 
Besides,  Sir,  consider  what  you  have  said  ;  you  first  deny 
Garrick’s  pretensions  to  fame,  and  then  accuse  him  of  too  great 
an  attention  to  preserve  what  he  never  possessed. 

Gib.  I  don’t  understand - 

JOHNS.  Sir,  I  can’t  help  that 2. 

Gib.  Well,  but  Dr.  Johnson,  you  will  not  vindicate  him  in  his 
over  and  above  attention  to  his  fame,  his  inordinate  desire  to 
exhibit  himself  to  new  men,  like  a  coquette,  ever  seeking 
after  new  conquests,  to  the  total  neglect  of  old  friends  and 
admirers ; — 

‘  He  threw  off  his  friends  like  a  huntsman  his  pack 3,’ 

always  looking  out  for  new  game. 

JOHNS.  When  you  quoted  the  line  from  Goldsmith,  you 
ought,  in  fairness,  to  have  given  what  followed  : — 

‘He  knew  when  he  pleased  he  could  whistle  them  back;’ 

which  implies  at  least  that  he  possessed  a  power  over  other 
men’s  minds  approaching  to  fascination  ;  but  consider,  Sir,  what 
is  to  be  done  :  here  is  a  man  whom  every  other  man  desired  to 
know.  Garrick  could  not  receive  and  cultivate  all,  according  to 
each  man’s  conception  of  his  own  value  :  we  are  all  apt  enough 
to  consider  ourselves  as  possessing  a  right  to  be  excepted  from 
the  common  crowd ;  besides,  Sir,  I  do  not  see  why  that  should 


1  ‘When  Johnson  thought  there 
was  intentional  falsehood  in  the  re¬ 
lator  his  expression  was,  “  He  lies, 
and  he  knows  he  lies.”  ’  Life,  iv.  49. 

2  ‘  Sir,  I  have  found  you  an  argu¬ 
ment  ;  but  I  am  not  obliged  to  find 
you  an  understanding.’  Ib.  iv.  313. 
‘  Intelligibilia,  non  intellectum  ad- 
ferol  Preface  to  Coleridge’s  Poems , 
ed.  1859,  p.  19. 

‘  I  must  neither  find  them  ears 
nor  mind.’  Ben  Jonson,  quoted  in 


Swinburne’s  Study  of  Ben  fonson, 
p.  175. 

‘  A  man  who  speaks  audibly  and 
intelligibly  is  not  to  be  blamed  for 
not  being  heard  ;  nobody  being 
bound  to  find  words  and  ears  too.’ 
South’s  Sermons ,  iii.  229. 

3  ‘  He  cast  off  his  friends  as  a 
huntsman  his  pack, 

For  he  knew  when  he  pleased 
he  could  whistle  them  back.’ 

Retaliation . 

be 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 


247 


be  imputed  to  him  as  a  crime,  which  we  all  so  irresistibly  feel 
and  practise  ;  we  all  make  a  greater  exertion  in  the  presence 
of  new  men  than  old  acquaintance  ;  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that 
Garrick  divided  his  attention  among  so  many,  that  but  little 
was  left  to  the  share  of  any  individual 1 ;  like  the  extension  and 
dissipation  of  water  into  dew,  there  was  not  quantity  united 
sufficiently  to  quench  any  man’s  thirst ;  but  this  is  the  inevitable 
state  of  things  :  Garrick,  no  more  than  another  man,  could  unite 
what,  in  their  natures,  are  incompatible. 

Gib.  But  Garrick  not  only  was  excluded  by  this  means  from 
real  friendship,  but  accused  of  treating  those  whom  he  called 
friends  with  insincerity  and  double  dealings. 

JOHNS.  Sir,  it  is  not  true;  his  character  in  that  respect  is 
misunderstood:  Garrick  was,  to  be  sure,  very  ready  in  promising, 
but  he  intended  at  that  time  to  fulfil  his  promise  ;  he  intended 
no  deceit  ;  his  politeness  or  his  good-nature,  call  it  which  you 
will,  made  him  unwilling  to  deny ;  he  wanted  the  courage  to  say 
No,  even  to  unreasonable  demands.  This  was  the  great  error  of 
his  life :  by  raising  expectations  which  he  did  not,  perhaps  could 
not,  gratify,  he  made  many  enemies ;  at  the  same  time  it  must 
be  remembered,  that  this  error  proceeded  from  the  same  cause 
which  produced  many  of  his  virtues.  Friendships  from  want  of 
temper  too  suddenly  taken  up,  and  too  violent  to  continue, 
ended  as  they  were  like  to  do,  in  disappointment ;  enmity  suc¬ 
ceeded  disappointment ;  his  friends  became  his  enemies  ;  and 
those  having  been  fostered  in  his  bosom,  well  knew  his  sensibility 
to  reproach,  and  they  took  care  that  he  should  be  amply  sup¬ 
plied  with  such  bitter  potions  as  they  were  capable  of  adminis¬ 
tering  ;  their  impotent  efforts  he  ought  to  have  despised,  but  he 
felt  them  ;  nor  did  he  affect  insensibility. 

Gib.  And  that  sensibility  probably  shortened  his  life. 

JOHNS.  No,  Sir,  he  died  of  a  disorder  of  which  you  or  any 


1  ‘  I  mentioned  that  Mr.  Wilkes 
had  attacked  Garrick  to  me,  as  a 
man  who  had  no  friend.  JOHNSON. 
“  I  believe  he  is  right,  Sir — (bLXoi, 
ov  (f)i\os — He  had  friends,  but  no 
friend.  Garrick  was  so  diffused,  he 


had  no  man  to  whom  he  wished  to 
unbosom  himself.  He  found  people 
always  ready  to  applaud  him,  and 
that  always  for  the  same  thing :  so 
he  saw  life  with  great  uniformity.”  * 
Life ,  iii.  386. 


other 


248 


Two  Dialogues  by 


other  man  may  die  x,  without  being  killed  by  too  much  sensi¬ 
bility. 

Gib.  But  you  will  allow,  however,  that  this  sensibility,  those 
fine  feelings,  made  him  the  great  actor  he  was. 

Johns.  This  is  all  cant1 2,  fit  only  for  kitchen  wenches  and 
chambermaids  :  Garrick’s  trade  was  to  represent  passion,  not  to 
feel  it.  Ask  Reynolds  whether  he  felt  the  distress  of  Count 
Hugolino  when  he  drew  it 3. 

Gib.  But  surely  he  feels  the  passion  at  the  moment  he  is 
representing  it. 

Johns.  About  as  much  as  Punch  feels4.  That  Garrick  him¬ 
self  gave  into  this  foppery  of  feelings  I  can  easily  believe  ;  but 
he  knew  at  the  same  time  that  he  lied.  He  might  think  it 
right,  as  far  as  I  know,  to  have  what  fools  imagined  he  ought  to 
have ;  but  it  is  amazing  that  any  one  should  be  so  ignorant  as 
to  think  that  an  actor  will  risk  his  reputation  by  depending  on 
the  feelings  that  shall  be  excited  in  the  presence  of  two  hundred 
people,  on  the  repetition  of  certain  words  which  he  has  repeated 
two  hundred  times  before  in  what  actors  call  their  study5.  No, 
Sir,  Garrick  left  nothing  to  chance ;  every  gesture,  every  expres¬ 
sion  of  countenance,  and  variation  of  voice,  was  settled  in  his 
closet  before  he  set  his  foot  upon  the  stage  6. 


1  He  died  of  a  disease  of  the 
kidneys.  Murphy’s  Garrick ,  p.  472. 

2  Ante ,  i.  161  n .,  314  n. 

3  North  cote  says  that  either  Burke 
or  Goldsmith,  seeing  a  head  of  a  man 
in  Reynolds’s  picture  gallery,  ‘ex¬ 
claimed  that  it  struck  him  as  being 
the  precise  person,  countenance  and 
expression  of  the  Count  Ugolino  as 
described  by  Dante  in  his  Inferno .’ 
Reynolds  had  not  had  Ugolino  in 
his  thoughts  when  he  drew  the  head. 
Northcote’s  Reynolds ,  i.  279. 

4  ‘  Punch  has  no  feelings.’  Ante , 
i.  457- 

5  Study  in  this  sense  is  not  in 
Johnson’s  Dictionary. 

6  “‘Are  you,  Sir,  (said  Johnson  to 
Kemble)  one  of  those  enthusiasts 


who  believe  yourself  transformed  into 
the  very  character  you  represent  ?  ” 
Upon  Mr.  Kemble’s  answering  that 
he  had  never  felt  so  strong  a  per¬ 
suasion  himself ;  “  To  be  sure  not, 
Sir,  (said  Johnson  ;)  the  thing  is  im¬ 
possible.  And  if  Garrick  really  be¬ 
lieved  himself  to  be  that  monster, 
Richard  the  Third,  he  deserved  to 
be  hanged  every  time  he  performed 
it.”’  life,  iv.  243.  See  also  ib.  v. 
46.  Mrs.  Pritchard,  who  was,  said 
Johnson,  ‘a  very  good  player’  {Life, 
v.  126);  ‘the  surprising  versatility 
of  whose  talents  ’  Gibbon  mentions 
{Misc.  Works ,  i.  155);  ‘who  was 
celebrated  in  Lady  Macbeth,  owned 
that  she  knew  no  more  of  that  play 
than  what  was  written  for  her  by  the 

prompter 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds. 


249 


prompter.’  Prior’s  Malone ,  p.  354. 
Goethe  speaking  of  the  theatre  at 
Weimar  said  : — ‘  An  actor’s  whole 
profession  requires  continual  self- 
denial,  and  a  continual  existence  in 
a  foreign  mask.  ...  If  an  actor  ap¬ 
peared  to  me  of  too  fiery  a  nature, 
I  gave  him  phlegmatic  characters  ; 
if  too  calm  and  tedious,  I  gave  him 
fiery  and  hasty  characters,  that  he 
might  thus  learn  to  lay  aside  him¬ 
self,  and  assume  foreign  individuality.’ 
Eckermann’s  Conversations  of  Goethe, 
i.  228-9.  For  Diderot’s  opinion,  see 
Life,  iv.  244,  n.  1. 

In  the  Early  Diary  of  Frances 
Burney ,  ii.  158,  we  have  the  follow¬ 
ing  instance  of  the  two  ways  in  which 
Johnson  spoke  of  Garrick  : — ‘  “They 
say,”  cried  Mrs.  Thrale,  “  that  Garrick 
was  extremely  hurt  at  the  coldness 
of  the  King’s  applause,  and  did  not 
find  his  reception  such  as  he  ex¬ 
pected.”  “  He  has  been  so  long 
accustomed,”  said  Mr.  Seward,  “  to 
the  thundering  approbation  of  the 
Theatre,  that  a  mere  4  Very  well] 
must  necessarily  and  naturally  dis¬ 
appoint  him.”  “  Sir,”  said  Dr.  John¬ 
son,  “he  should  not,  in  a  Royal 
apartment,  expect  the  hallowing  and 
clamour  of  the  One  Shilling  Gallery. 
The  King,  I  doubt  not,  gave  him  as 
much  applause,  as  was  rationally  his 
due;  and,  indeed,  great  and  un¬ 
common  as  is  the  merit  of  Mr. 
Garrick,  no  man  will  be  bold  enough 
to  assert  he  has  not  had  his  just  pro¬ 
portion  both  of  fame  and  profit.  He 
has  long  reigned  the  unequalled 
favourite  of  the  public  ;  and  there¬ 
fore  nobody  will  mourn  his  hard  fate, 
if  the  King  and  the  Royal  Family 


were  not  transported  into  rapture, 
upon  hearing  him  read  Lethe.  Yet 
Mr.  Garrick  will  complain  to  his 
friends,  and  his  friends  will  lament 
the  King’s  want  of  feeling  and  taste  ; 
— and  then  Mr.  Garrick  will  kindly 
excuse  the  King.  He  will  say  that 
His  Majesty  might  be  thinking  of 
something  else  ;  that  the  affairs  of 
America  might  occur  to  him ;  or 
some  subject  of  more  importance 
than  Lethe  ;  but,  though  he  will  say 
this  himself,  he  will  not  forgive  his 
friends  if  they  do  not  contradict  ”  ! 
But,  now  that  I  have  written  this 
satire,  it  is  but  just  both  to  Mr. 
Garrick  and  to  Dr.  Johnson,  to  tell 
you  what  he  said  of  him  afterwards, 
when  he  discriminated  his  character 
with  equal  candour  and  humour. 
“  Garrick,”  he  said,  “  is  accused  of 
vanity ;  but  few  men  would  have 
borne  such  unremitting  prosperity 
with  greater,  if  with  equal  modera¬ 
tion.  He  is  accused,  too,  of  avarice  ; 
but,  were  he  not,  he  would  be  ac¬ 
cused  of  just  the  contrary  ;  for  he 
now  lives  rather  as  a  prince  than  an 
actor ;  but  the  frugality  he  practised, 
when  he  first  appeared  in  the  world, 
and  which  even  then  was  perhaps 
beyond  his  necessity,  has  marked 
his  character  ever  since  ;  and  now, 
though  his  table,  his  equipage,  and 
manner  of  living  are  ail  the  most 
expensive,  and  equal  to  those  of  a 
nobleman,  yet  the  original  stain  still 
blots  his  name  !  Though,  had  he 
not  fixed  upon  himself  the  charge  of 
avarice,  he  would  long  since  have 
been  reproached  with  luxury,  and 
with  living  beyond  his  station  in 
magnificence  and  splendour.”  ’ 


c 


RECOLLECTIONS  OF  DR.  JOHNSON 

BY  MISS  REYNOLDS 

'  i  V 


[These  Recollections  were  published  by  Mr.  Croker  from 
some  MSS.  in  Miss  Reynolds’s  handwriting,  communicated 
to  him  by  the  Rev.  John  Palmer,  grandson  of  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds’s  sister  Mary,  who  married  John  Palmer  ofTorrington. 
They  have  been  kindly  lent  me  by  their  present  owner,  Lady 
Colomb  of  Dronquinna,  Kenmare,  the  Rev.  John  Palmer’s 
granddaughter.  One  set  is  tolerably  complete  ;  the  other  is 
made  up  of  at  least  two,  and  probably  three,  versions.  It  was 
clearly  with  a  view  to  publication  that  Miss  Reynolds  revised 
and  rewrote  her  Recollections.  On  one  page,  where  she  gives 
Johnson’s  poem  on  Levett,  she  says  : — ‘  I  think  I  may  be 
excused  for  publishing  it,  tho’  it  has  already  appear’d  in  print,  if 
only  because  Dr.  Johnson  gave  it  to  me  with  his  own  hand  V 
No  doubt  at  the  last  her  courage  failed  her,  as  it  had  failed  her 
earlier  in  the  case  of  the  poems  and  essays  which  she  had 
thought  of  printing  (post,  p.  27 9),  and  her  Recollections  were 
confined  to  her  desk.  It  was  all  in  vain  that  Boswell  had 
tried  to  get  from  her  the  letters  which  she  had  received  from 
Johnson.  ‘I  am  sorry,’  he  wrote,  ‘that  her  too  nice  delicacy 
will  not  permit  them  to  be  published.’  (Life,  i.  486,  n.  1).] 


The  first  time  I  was  in  company  with  Dr.  Johnson  I  remember 

1  In  this  version  in  the  line,  she  writes,  ‘No  summons  shock’d,’ 

‘  No  summons  mock’d  by  chill  &c. 
delay,’ 


the 


Recollections  of  Dr,  Johnson  by  Miss  Reynolds .  251 


the  impression  I  felt  in  his  favour,  on  his  saying  that  as  he 
return’d  to  his  lodgings  about  one  or  two  o’clock  in  the 
morning,  he  often  saw  poor  children  asleep  on  thresholds  and 
stalls,  and  that  he  used  to  put  pennies 1  into  their  hands  to  buy 
them  a  breakfast. 

And  at  the  first  interview  which  was  at  that  lady’s  house  to 
whom  he  address’d  his  galant  [sic]  letter2  was,  as  I  well 
remember,  the  flattering  notice  he  took  of  a  lady  present,  on  her 
saying  that  she  was  inclined  to  estimate  the  morality  of  every 
person  according  as  they  liked  or  disliked  Clarissa  Harlowe. 
He  was  a  great  admirer  of  Richardson’s  works  in  general,  but  of 
Clarissa  he  always  spoke  with  the  highest  enthusiastic  praise. 
He  used  to  say,  that  it  was  the  first  Book  in  the  world  for  the 
knowledge  it  displays  of  the  human  Heart  3.  Yet  of  the  Author 
I  never  heard  him  speak  with  any  degree  of  cordiality,  but 
rather  as  if  impress’d  with  some  cause  of  resentment  against 
him  4 ;  and  this  has  been  imputed  to  something  of  jealousy,  not 
to  say  envy,  on  account  of  Richardson’s  having  engross’d 
the  attentions  and  affectionate  assiduities  of  several  very  in¬ 
genious  literary  ladies,  whom  he  used  to  call  his  addopted  [sic] 
daughters,  and  for  whom  Dr.  Johnson  had  conceived  a  paternal 
affection  (particularly  for  two  of  them,  Miss  Carter  5  and  Miss 
Mulso  6,  now  Mrs.  Chapone),  previous  to  their  acquaintance  with 


1  ‘Dr.  Johnson’s  own  expression.’ 
Miss  Reynolds. 

2  ‘At  the  end  of  the  second  vol.  of 
Dr.  Johnson’s  Letters  to  Mrs.Thrale.’ 
Miss  Reynolds.  ‘The  lady  was 
Miss  Cotterell.’  Letters ,  i.  43. 

3  ‘Sir,  there  is  more  knowledge  of 
the  heart  in  one  letter  of  Richardson’s 
than  in  all  Tom  Jones i  Life ,  ii.  1 74.  See 
also  ante,  ii.  190,  and  Letters,  i.  21. 

4  At  Edinburgh  he  said  of  Richard¬ 

son  that  ‘  his  perpetual  study  was 
to  ward  off  petty  inconveniences  and 
procure  petty  pleasures ;  that  his 
love  of  continual  superiority  was 
such,  that  he  took  care  to  be  always 

surrounded  by  women,  who  listened 
to  him  implicitly,  and  did  not  venture 


to  controvert  his  opinions ;  and  that 
his  desire  of  distinction  was  so  great, 
that  he  used  to  give  large  vails  to  the 
Speaker  Onslow’s  servants,  that  they 
might  treat  him  with  respect.’  Life , 
v.  395*  See  also  ib.  p.  396,  n.  1,  and 
ante,  i.  273. 

5  Miss  Carter  was  only  eight  years 
younger  than  Johnson,  so  that  the 
affection  was  scarcely  paternal.  F or 
her  puddings  and  her  Greek  see 
ante,  ii.  ii. 

6  Johnson  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale  : — 
‘  You  make  verses,  and  they  are  read 
in  publick,  and  I  know  nothing  about 
them.  This  very  crime,  I  think, 
broke  the  link  of  amity  between 
Richardson  and  Miss  M — ,  after  a 

Richardson 


252 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Richardson ;  and  it  was  said,  that  he  thought  himself  neglected 
by  them  on  his  account. 

Johnson  set  a  higher  value  upon  female  friendship  than, 
perhaps,  most  men ;  which  may*  reasonably  be  supposed  was 
not  a  little  inhanced  \sic\  by  his  acquaintance  with  those  Ladies, 
if  it  was  not  originally  derived  from  them.  To  their  society, 
doubtless,  Richardson  owed  that  delicacy  of  sentiment,  that  femi¬ 
nine  excellence,  as  I  may  say,  that  so  peculiarly  distinguishes 
his  writings  from  those  of  his  own  sex  in  general,  how  high  soever 
they  may  soar  above  the  other  in  the  more  dignified  walks  of 
literature,  in  scientific  investigations,  and  abstruse  inquiries. 

Dr.  Johnson  used  to  repeat,  with  very  apparent  delight,  some 
lines  of  a  poem  written  by  one  of  these  ladies1: — 

Say,  Stella,  what  is  Love,  whose  cruel  power 
Robs  virtue  of  content,  and  youth  of  joy  ? 

What  Nymph  or  Goddess,  in  what  fatal  hour, 

Produced  to  light  the  mischief-making  Boy? 

Some  say,  by  Idleness  and  Pleasure  bred, 

The  smiling  babe  on  beds  of  roses  lay ; 

There  with  soft-honied  dews  by  Fancy  fed, 

His  infant  Beauties  open’d  on  the  Day2. 

Dr.  Johnson  had  a  \sic\  uncommonly  retentive  memory  for 
every  thing  that  appear’d  to  him  worthy  of  observation.  What¬ 
ever  he  met  with  in  reading,  particularly  poetry,  I  believe  he 
seldom  required  a  revisal  to  be  able  to  repeat  verbatim3.  If 
not  literally  so,  it  was  more  honour'd  in  the  breach  than  in  the 
observance.  And  this  was  the  case,  in  some  respects,  in  Shen- 


tenderness  and  confidence  of  many 
years.’  Letters ,  ii.  141.  Miss  M — 
was,  no  doubt,  Miss  Mulso.  She 
wrote  ‘four  billets’  in  the  Rambler , 
No.  10.  Life,  i.  203. 

1  Miss  Mulso.  Miss  Reynolds. 

2  ‘Johnson  paid  the  first  of  these 
stanzas  the  great  and  undeserved 
compliment  of  quoting  it  in  his  Dic¬ 
tionary,  under  the  word  Quatrain .’ 
Croker. 

The  stanza  as  there  quoted  is 
somewhat  better;  it  is  likely  that 
Johnson  improved  it. 


‘  Say,  Stella,  what  is  love,  whose 
fatal  pow’r 

Robs  virtue  of  content  and  youth 
of  joy? 

What  nymph  or  goddess  in  a  luck¬ 
less  hour 

Disclos’d  to  light  the  mischief¬ 
making  boy  ?’ 

Though  Miss  Mulso  was  but 
twenty-eight  when  the  Dictionary 
was  published,  she  was  already 
complimented  with  the  title  of 
Mrs.  Mulso. 

3  Ante ,  i.  360  ;  Life ,  i.  39  ;  v.  368. 

stone's 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


253 


stone’s  poem  of  The  Inn,  which  I  learnt  from  hearing  Dr.  Johnson 
repeat  it ;  and  I  was  surprised,  on  Seeing  it  lately  among  the 
Author’s  works  for  the  first  time,  to  find  it  so  different.  The 
alterations  are  in  italics  x. 

To  thee,  fair  Freedom,  I  retire, 

From  flattery,  feasting1 2 3,  dice  and  din; 

Now  art  thou  found  in  Domes  much 3  higher 
Than  the  low  Cot  or  humble  Inn. 

’Tis  here  with  boundless  power  I  reign, 

And  every  Health  that  I  begin, 

Brightens  dull  Port  to  gay  Champaigne4 
For  Freedom  crowns  it  at  an  Inn. 

I  fly  from  pomp,  I  fly  from  plate, 

I  fly  from  falsehood’s  specious  grin  ; 

Freedom  I  love,  and  form  I  hate, 

And  chuse  my  lodgings  at  an  Inn. 

Here,  Waiter,  take  my  sordid  ore, 

Which  lacquays  else  might  hope  to  win ; 

It  buys  what  Courts  have  not  in  store, 

It  buys  me  freedom  at  an  Inn. 

And  once  again  I  shape  my  way , 

Through  rain ,  through  shine ,  through  thick  and  thin , 

Secure  to  meet  at  close  of  Day 
A  kind  reception  at  an  Inn  5. 

You  who  have  travell’d  Life’s  dull  Round, 

Who  through  its  various  Tours  have  been, 

May  sigh  to  think  how  oft  you’ve  found 
The  warmest  welcome  at  an  Inn  6. 


1  Johnson  for  the  most  part  quoted 
the  poem  as  it  was  originally  pub¬ 
lished  in  Dodsley’s  Collection ,  1758, 
v.  51.  Miss  Reynolds  saw  it  as  it 
was  given  in  Shenstone’s  Works f 
1791,  i.  218. 

2  Cards  and  dice. 

3  In  mansions  higher. 

4  In  Shenstone,  ‘  Converts  dull 
port  to  bright  champagne.’ 

5  ‘Spoken  by  Dr.  Johnson  extern- 
temporary.’  Miss  Reynolds.  This 
verse  with  slight  differences  is  in  the 
original  poem. 

6  ‘“No,  Sir;  there  is  nothing 


which  has  yet  been  contrived  by 
man,  by  which  so  much  happiness 
is  produced  as  by  a  good  tavern  or 
inn.”  He  then  repeated,  with  great 
emotion,  Shenstone’s  lines  : — 
“Whoe’er  has  travell’d  life’s  dull 
round, 

Where’er  his  stages  may  have 
been, 

May  sigh  to  think  he  still  has 
found 

The  warmest  welcome  at  an  inn.” 
Life ,  ii.  452.  See  ib.  n.  for  the  stanza 
as  it  originally  stood. 

‘March  3,  1831.  “Those  are 

Dr. 


254 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Dr.  Johnson  commonly  read  with  amazing  rapidity,  glancing 
his  eye  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of  the  page  in  an  instant x. 
If  he  made  any  pause,  it  was  a  compliment  to  the  work;  and, 
after  seesawing  over  it 2  a  few  minutes,  generally  repeated  the 
passage,  especially  if  it  was  poetry.  One  day,  on  taking  up 
Pope’s  Essay  on  Man ,  a  particular  passage  seem’d  more  than 
ordinarily  to  engage  his  attention  ;  and  so  much,  indeed,  that, 
contrary  to  his  usual  custom,  after  he  had  left  the  Book  and  the 
place  where  he  was  sitting,  he  return’d  to  revise  it,  turning  over 
the  pages  with  anxiety  to  find  it,  and  then  repeated — 

Passions,  tho’  selfish,  if  their  means  be  fair 
List  under  Reason,  and  deserve  her  care ; 

Those  that,  imparted,  court  a  nobler  aim, 

Exalt  their  kind,  and  take  some  virtue’s  name3. 

His  task,  probably,  was  the  whole  paragraph,  but  these  lines 
only  were  audible. 

He  seemed  much  to  delight  in  reciting  verses,  particularly 
from  Pope.  Among  the  many  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  hearing 
him  recite,  the  conclusion  of  the  Dunciad  and  his  Epistle  to 
Jervas ,  seemed  to  claim  his  highest  admiration  : — 

Led  by  some  rule  that  guides,  but  not  constrains, 

And  finish’d  more  through  happiness  than  pains4, 

he  used  to  remark,  was  a  union  that  constituted  the  ultimate 
degree  of  excellence  in  the  fine  arts. 

Two  lines  from  Pope’s  Universal  Prayer  I  have  heard  him 
quote,  in  very  serious  conversation,  as  his  theological  creed  : — 

And  binding  Nature  fast  in  fate, 

Left  free  the  Human  will5. 

•f 

Mr.  Baretti  used  to  remark,  with  a  smile,  that  Dr.  Johnson 


most  fortunate  (said  Goethe)  who 
live  in  tents,  or  who,  like  some  Eng¬ 
lishmen,  are  always  going  from  one 
city  and  one  inn  to  another,  and  find 
everywhere  a  good  table  ready.” } 
Eckermann’s  Conversations  of 
Goethe ,  1850,  ii.  360. 

1  ‘  He  had  a  peculiar  facility  in 


seizing  at  once  what  was  valuable  in 
any  book  without  submitting  to  the 
labour  of  perusing  it  from  beginning 
to  end.’  Life,  i.  71. 

2  Ante,  ii.  142. 

3  Essay  on  Man,  ii.  97. 

4  Epistle  to  Mr.  fervas,  1.  67. 

5  Ante,  ii.  233. 

always 


by  Miss  Reynolds . 


255 


always  talked  his  best  to  the  ladies.  But,  indeed,  that  was  his 
usual  custom  to  every  person  who  would  furnish  him  with  a 
subject  worthy  of  his  discussion  1  ;  for,  what  was  very  singular  in 
him,  he  would  rarely,  if  ever,  begin  any  subject  himself,  but 
would  sit  silent  till  something  was  particularly  addressed  to  him 2, 
and  if  that  happened  to  lead  to  any  scientific  or  moral  inquiry, 
his  benevolence,  I  believe,  more  immediately  prompted  him  to 
expatiate  on  it  for  the  edification  of  the  ignorant  than  from  any 
other  motive  whatever. 

One  day,  on  a  lady’s  telling  him  that  she  had  read  Parnell’s 
Hermit  with  dissatisfaction,  for  she  could  not  help  thinking  that 
thieves  and  murderers,  who  were  such  immediate  ministers  from 
heaven  of  good  to  man,  did  not  deserve  such  punishments  as  our 
laws  inflict3,  Dr.  Johnson  made  such  an  eloquent  oration,  and 
with  such  energy,  as  indeed  afforded  a  most  striking  instance 
of  the  truth  of  Baretti’s  observation,  but  of  which,  to  my  great 
regret,  I  can  give  no  corroborating  proof,  my  memory  furnishing 
me  with  nothing  more  than  barely  the  general  tendency  of  his 
arguments,  which  were  to  prove,  that  though  it  might  be  said 
that  wicked  men,  as  well  as  the  good,  were  ministers  of  God, 
because  in  the  moral  sphere  the  good  we  enjoy  and  the  evil  we 
suffer  are  administered  to  us  by  man,  yet,  as  infinite  goodness 
could  not  inspire  or  influence  man  to  act  wickedly,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  it  was  his  divine  property  to  produce  good  out  of  evil, 
and  as  man  was  endowed  with  free-will  to  act,  or  refrain  from 


1  Speaking  of  his  talk  ‘he  told 
Sir  Joshua  that  he  had  early  laid  it 
down  as  a  fixed  rule  to  do  his  best 
on  every  occasion.’  Life,  i.  204.  See 
ib.  iii.  193,  n.  3,  for  ‘his  phrase, 
“  they  talked  their  best.”  ’ 

2  Ante ,  i.  289. 

3  In  Parnell’s  poem  an  angel,  dis¬ 
guised  as  a  youth,  in  the  hermit’s 
sight  steals  a  golden  goblet  from 
a  generous  but  too  lavish  host ; 
gives  it  to  a  miser ;  strangles  a  vir¬ 
tuous  man’s  only  child,  and  drowns 
a  servant  who  is  guiding  them 
across  a  river.  He  explains  how 
Providence 


.  .  .  ‘  through  all  depends 
On  using  second  means  to  work 
his  ends,’ 

and  shows  that  out  of  each  one  of  these 
‘strange  events’  gobd  came.  The  lady, 
applying  this  pious  fable,  said  that 
thieves  and  murderers  who  are  but 
‘  Second  means  ’  are  hardly  dealt  with 
when  they  were  sent  to  the  gallows. 
She  ought,  after  seeing  them  hanged 
at  Tyburn*  to  have  stifled  her  doubts, 
and  to  have  imitated  the  hermit,  who 
.  .  .  ‘gladly  turning  sought  his 
ancient  place, 

And  pass’d  a  life  of  piety  and 
peace.’ 

acting 


256 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


acting  wickedly,  with  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  with  conscience 
to  admonish  and  to  direct  him  to  chuse  the  one  and  reject  the 
other,  he  was,  therefore,  as  criminal  in  the  sight  of  God  and  of 
man,  and^  as  deserving  punishment  for  his  evil  deeds,  as  if  no 
good  had  resulted  from  them  k 

There  was  nothing  Dr.  Johnson  used  to  say  of  which  he  was 
so  certain  as  of  the  freedom  of  his  will,  and  no  man,  I  believe, 
was  ever  more  attentive  to  preserve  its  rectitude,  its  acquired 
rectitude,  I  suppose  I  should  say,  in  conformity  with  his  religious 
tenets  respecting  original  sin,  and  with  his  more  general  and 
common  assertions  that  Man  was  by  Nature  much  more  inclined 
to  evil  than  to  good 1  2. 

And  another  Axiom  of  his  of  the  same  gloomy  tendency  was 
that  the  pain  and  miseries  of  human  life  far  outweighed  its 
happiness  and  good  3 *.  But  on  a  lady’s  asking  him  whether  he 
would  not  permit  common  ease  to  be  put  into  the  scale  of 
happiness  and  good,  he  seem’d  embarrassed  (very  unusual  with 
him)  and  answering  in  the  affirmative,  instantly  rose  from  his 
seat  to  avoid  the  inference. 

But,  indeed,  much  may  be  said  in  Dr.  Johnson’s  justification, 
supposing  these  notions  should  not  meet  with  universal  approba¬ 
tion,  having,  it  is  probable,  imbibed  them  in  the  early  part  of  his 
life,  when  under  the  pressure  of  adverse  fortune,  and  in  every 
period  of  it  under  the  still  heavier  pressure  and  more  adverse 


1  ‘Johnson.  “Moral  evil  is  oc¬ 
casioned  by  free  will,  which  implies 
choice  between  good  and  evil.  With 
all  the  evil  that  there  is,  there  is  no 

man  but  would  rather  be  a  free 

• 

agent,  than  a  mere  machine  without 
the  evil ;  and  what  is  best  for  each 
individual,  must  be  best  for  the 
whole.  If  a  man  would  rather  be 
the  machine,  I  cannot  argue  with 
him.  He  is  a  different  being  from 
me.”  5  Life ,  v.  117.  See  also  ib . 
v.  366,  and  ante ,  ii.  233. 

2  ‘  This  may  appear  rather  incon¬ 

sistent  with  his  notions  of  free-will, 

but  I  will  write  the  truth  and  nothing 

but  the  truth.5  Miss  Reynolds. 


See  ante,  i.  268  n.,  where  Lady 
M’Leod  starting  at  what  Johnson 
maintained  said,  “  This  is  worse  than 
Swift.”  5 

3  ‘From  the  subject  of  death  we 
passed  to  discourse  of  life,  whether 
it  was  upon  the  whole  more  happy 
or  miserable.  Johnson  was  de¬ 
cidedly  for  the  balance  of  misery,5 
Life ,  iv.  300.  But  see  fiost ,  p.  360, 
where  ‘  he  asserted  that  no  man 
could  pronounce  he  did  not  feel  more 
pleasure  than  misery.’ 

Swift  wrote  : — ‘  The  miseries  of 
man  are  all  beaten  out  on  his  own 
anvil.’  Swift’s  Works ,  ed.  1803, 
xv.  11. 


influence 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


257 


influence  of  Nature  herself.  For  I  have  often  heard  him  lament 
that  he  inherited  from  his  Father  a  morbid  disposition  both  of 
Body  and  Mind x.  An  oppressive  melancholy  which  robb’d  him 
of  the  common  enjoyment  of  life1 2. 

Indeed,  he  seemed  to  struggle  almost  incessantly  with  some 
mental  evil,  and  often,  by  the  expression  of  his  countenance  and 
the  motion  of  his  lips,  appeared  to  be  offering  up  some  ejaculation 
to  Heaven  to  remove  it.  But  in  Lent,  or  near  the  approach  of 
any  great  festival,  he  would  generally  retire  from  the  company 
to  a  corner  of  the  room,  but  most  commonly  behind  a  window- 
curtain,  to  pray,  and  with  such  energy,  and  in  so  loud  a  whisper, 
that  every  word  was  heard  distinctly,  particularly  the  Lord’s 
Prayer  and  the  Apostles’  Creed,  with  which  he  constantly  con¬ 
cluded  his  devotions.  Sometimes  some  words  would  emphatically 
escape  him  in  his  usual  tone  of  voice 3. 

At  these  holy  seasons  he  usually  secluded  himself  more  from 
society  than  at  other  times,  at  least  from  general  and  mixed 
society,  and  on  a  gentleman’s  sending  him  an  invitation  to  dinner 
on  Easter-eve  he  was  highly  offended,  and  expressed  himself  so 
in  his  answer4. 

On  every  occasion  that  had  the  least  tendency  to  depreciate 
Religion  or  morality,  he  totally  disregarded  all  forms  or  rules  of 
good-breeding,  as  utterly  unworthy  of  the  slightest  consideration. 
But  it  must  be  confess’d,  that  he  sometimes  suffered  this  noble 
principle  to  transgress  its  due  bounds,  and  to  degenerate  into 
prejudices  unworthy  of  his  character,  extending  even  to  those  who 
were  anywise  connected  with  the  person  who  had  offended  him. 

One  day,  the  Brother  of  a  gentleman5  for  whom  Dr.  Johnson 


1  1 1  inherited  (said  he)  a  vile 
melancholy  from  my  father,  which  has 
made  me  mad  all  my  life,  at  least 
not  sober.’  Life ,  v.  215  ;  ante ,  i.  148. 

2  This  last  paragraph  was  originally 
written  ‘  terrifying  melancholy,  which 
he  was  sometimes  apprehensive  bor¬ 
dered  on  insanity.’ 

3  Ante,  i.  439;  Life ,  i.  483. 

4  With  the  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor,  who 
invited  him  to  dinner  on  the  last 
day  of  Lent,  he  did  not  show  him- 

VOL.  II. 


self  offended.  Letters,  i.  188.  There 
is  nothing  to  show  that  he  kept  any 
part  of  Lent  but  Passion  Week,  and 
even  that  he  did  not  always  keep 
strictly.  Ante,  i.  82.  See  Life ,  iv. 
89,  for  ‘  the  admirable  sophistry  ’ 
of  his  defence  for  twice  dining  at 
a  Bishop’s  in  that  week. 

5  The  two  men  were  Israel  and 
John  Wilkes.  Israel  Wilkes  settled 
in  New  York.  Almon’s  Memoirs  of 
John  Wilkes,  i.  3. 


S 


had 


258 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


had  conceived  some  disgust,  (chiefly  I  believe  for  his  political 
principles)  happening  to  meet  him  at  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s 
(Mr.  Reynolds  then)  in  company  with  some  gentlemen  and  ladies 
of  very  distinguish’d  characters  (I  rertiember  Garrick  was  one, 
by  a  remarkable  expression  of  his  to  a  Lady  present,  that  indi¬ 
cated  very  uneasy  apprehensions  that  the  attention  of  the  ladies 
to  him  would  provoke  Johnson  to  say  something  rude  to  him). 
As  this  gentleman  was  giving  his  opinion  on  the  subject  of  their 
discourse,  Mr.  Johnson  stop’d  him  with  cpray,  Sir,  what  you  are 
going  to  say,  let  it  be  better  worth  the  hearing  than  what  you 
have  already  said.’  Which  seem’d  to  give  a  shock,  and  to  spread 
a  gloom  over  the  whole  Party,  particularly  because  this  gentle¬ 
man  was  of  a  most  amiable  character,  a  man  of  refined  Taste, 
and  a  scholar,  and  what  Mr.  Johnson  little  suspected,  a  very 
loyal  subject. 

He  afterwards  told  the  Lady  of  the  House  that  he  was  very 

t 

sorry  that  he  should  have  snubbed  W.  as  he  did,  because  his  wife 
was  present.  ‘Yes,  Sir;  and  for  many  reasons.’  c  No,  it  is  only 
because  his  wife  was  present  that  I  am  sorry.’ 

But  this  was  mild  treatment  in  comparison  of  what  a  gentle¬ 
man1 2  met  with  from  him  one  day  at  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s, 
a  barrister  at  law  and  a  man  of  fashion,  who,  on  discoursing  with 
Mr.  Johnson  on  the  laws  and  government  of  different  nations, 
I  remember  particularly  those  of  Venice,  on  being  inadvertently 
prompted  to  speak  of  them  in  terms  of  high  approbation :  c  Yes, 
Sir,’ says  Johnson,  ‘all  Republican  Rascals  think  as  you  do3.’ 
How  the  conversation  ended  I  have  forgot,  it  was  so  many  years 
ago ;  I  believe  he  never  made  any  apology  for  the  insult  either 
to  the  gentleman  or  any  other  person  ;  luckily  there  were  but 
two  others  present. 


1  Miss  Reynolds. 

2  Mr.  Eliot.  Miss  Reynolds. 

3  Northcote,  who  had  the  aneo 
dote  from  Miss  Reynolds,  describes 
‘the  young  gentleman’  as  ‘humbly 
making  his  inquiries  to  gain  all 
possible  information  from  the  pro¬ 
found  knowledge  of  Dr.  Johnson, 
when  her  attention  was  suddenly 


attracted  by  the  Doctor  exclaiming 
in  a  very  loud  and  peremptory  tone 
of  voice,  “Yes,  Sir,  &c.”  ’  North- 
cote’s  Reynolds ,  i.  23. 

To  his  friend  Windham  Johnson 
said,  ‘  with  a  pleasant  smile,  “  Don’t 
be  afraid,  Sir,  you  will  soon  make 
a  very  pretty  rascal.”  ’  Life ,  iv. 
200. 


Of 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


259 


Of  latter  years  he  grew  much  more  companionable,  and  I  have 
heard  him  say,  that  he  knew  himself  to  be  so.  *  In  my  younger 
days,’  he  would  say,  ‘  it  is  true  I  was  much  inclined  to  treat  man¬ 
kind  with  asperity  and  contempt ;  but  I  found  it  answered  no 
good  end.  I  thought  it  wiser  and  better  to  take  the  world  as  it 
goes.  Besides,  as  I  have  advanced  in  life  I  have  had  more  reason 
to  be  satisfied  with  it.  Mankind  have  treated  me  with  more 
kindness,  and  of  course  I  have  more  kindness  for  them  V 

In  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  indeed,  his  circumstances  were 
very  different  from  what  they  were  in  the  beginning.  Before  he 
had  the  Pension,  he  literally  drest  like  a  Beggar  ;  and  from  what 
I  have  been  told,  literally  lived  as  such2;  at  least  respecting 
common  conveniences  in  his  apartments,  wanting  even  a  chair  to 
sit  on  3,  particularly  in  his  study,  where  a  gentleman  who  fre¬ 
quently  visited  him  whilst  writing  his  Idlers  always  found  him 
at  his  Desk,  sitting  on  one  with  three  legs ;  and  on  rising  from 
it,  he  remark’d  that  Mr.  Johnson  never  forgot  its  defect,  but 
would  either  hold  it  in  his  hand  or  place  it  with  great  composure 
against  some  support,  taking  no  notice  of  its  imperfection  to  his 
visitor.  How  he  sat,  whether  on  the  window- seat,  on  a  chair,  or 
on  a  pile  of  Folios,  or  how  he  sat,  I  do  not  remember  to  have 
heard 4. 


1  ‘  I  never  have  sought  the  world  ; 
the  world  was  not  to  seek  me.  It 
is  rather  wonderful  that  so  much  has 
been  done  for  me.’  Life ,  iv.  172. 

‘  The  world  is  not  so  unjust  or  uh- 
kind  as  it  is  peevishly  represented.’ 
Letters ,  ii.  215.  See  also  ante ,  ii.  244. 

2  Even  for  some  time  after  he  re¬ 
ceived  his  pension  ‘  his  apartment 
and  furniture  and  morning  dress  were 
sufficiently  uncouth.’  Life,  i.  396. 
See  also  ante ,  ii.  141,  for  his  decent 
drawing-room  at  a  later  period.  How 
unlike  he  was  in  this  to  Swift,  who 
‘  seems  to  have  wasted  life  in  dis¬ 
content  by  the  rage  of  neglected 
pride  and  the  languishment  of  un¬ 
satisfied  desire.  He  is  querulous 
and  fastidious,  arrogant  and  malig¬ 
nant  :  he  scarcely  speaks  of  himself 

S  % 


but  with  indignant  lamentations.’ 
Works ,  viii.  225. 

3  In  a  note  in  the  Life ,  i.  328, 
I  say,  ‘  there  can  be  little  question 
that  she  is  describing  the  same  room 
[as  that  described  by  Mr.  Burney  in 
Gough  Square] — a  room  in  a  house 
in  which  Miss  Williams  was  lodged, 
and  most  likely  Mr.  Levet.’  I  may 
be  mistaken  ;  for  when  he  was  writing 
the  Idler  he  was  living  not  only  in 
Gough  Square,  but  also  in  Staple 
Inn  and  Gray’s  Inn,  and  perhaps  in 
Inner  Temple  Lane.  In  none  of 
these  places  did  Miss  Williams  lodge. 
See  Life ,  i.  350,  n.  3,  and  ante ,  ii. 
1 16.  It  is  absurd  to  suppose  that 
he  had  no  chairs  in  his  sitting-room. 

4  ‘After  dinner,  Mr.  Johnson  pro¬ 
posed  to  Mr.  Burney  to  go  up  with 

It 


260 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


It  was  remarkable  in  Dr.  Johnson  that  no  external  circum¬ 
stances  ever  prompted  him  to  make  any  apology,  or  to  seem 
even  sensible  of  their  existence.  Whether  this  was  the  effect  of 
Philosophic  pride,  or  of  some  partial  notion  respecting  high 
breeding  is  doubtful  k 

It  is  very  certain  that  he  piqued  himself  much  upon  his  know¬ 
ledge  of  the  rules  of  true  politeness,  and  particularly  on  his  most 
punctilious  observances  of  them  towards  the  ladies.  A  remark¬ 
able  instance  of  this  was  his  never  suffering  any  lady  to  walk 
from  his  house  to  her  carriage,  through  Bolt  Court,  unattended 
by  himself  to  hand  her  into  it  (at  least  I  have  reason  to  suppose 
it  to  be  his  general  custom,  from  his  constant  performance  of  it 
to  those  with  whom  he  was  the  most  intimately  acquainted) ;  and 
if  any  obstacle  prevented  it  from  driving  off,  there  he  would 
stand  by  the  door  of  it,  and  gather  a  mob  around  him.  Indeed 
they  would  begin  to  gather  the  moment  he  appear’d  handing  the 
lady  down  the  steps  into  Fleet  Street.  But  to  describe  his  ap¬ 
pearance,  his  important  air  (that  indeed  cannot  be  described)  but 
his  morning  Habiliments,  from  head  to  foot,  would  excite  the 
utmost  astonishment  in  my  reader,  how  a  man  in  his  senses  could 
think  of  steping  [sic]  outside  his  door  in  them,  or  even  to  be 
seen  at  home  in  them.  Sometimes  he  exhibited  himself  at  the 
distance  of  eight  or  ten  doors  distant  from  Bolt  Court,  to  get  at 
the  carriage,  to  the  no  small  diversion  of  the  populace 2. 

And  I  am  certain  to  all  who  love  laughing  a  description  of  his 
dress  from  head  to  foot  would  be  highly  acceptable,  and  in 
general,  I  believe,  be  thought  the  most  curious  part  of  my  Book. 
But  I  forbear,  merely  out  of  respect  to  his  memory,  to  give  the 


him  into  his  garret,  which  being 
accepted,  he  there  found  about  five 
or  six  Greek  folios,  a  deal  writing- 
desk,  and  a  chair  and  a  half.  J ohnson 
giving  to  his  guest  the  entire  seat, 
tottered  himself  on  one  with  only 
three  legs  and  one  arm.’  Life ,  i.  328. 

1  ‘  Mrs.  Adams  said  “  she  was 
ashamed  to  be  seen  in  such  a  pickle, 
and  that  her  house  was  in  such  a 
litter ;  but  that  if  she  had  expected 
such  an  honour  from  her  Ladyship, 


she  should  have  found  her  in  a  better 
manner.”  The  parson  made  no  apo¬ 
logies,  though  he  was  in  his  half¬ 
cassock,  and  a  flannel  night-cap. 
He  said  they  were  heartily  welcome 
to  his  poor  cottage.’  Joseph  An¬ 
drews,  Bk.  iv.  ch.  9. 

2  See  Life ,  ii.  405,  for  Beauclerk’s 
account  of  Johnson’s  ‘doing  the 
honours  of  his  literary  residence  to 
a  foreign  lady  of  quality,’  and  ante , 
ii.  180. 


slightest 


by  Miss  Reynolds . 


261 


slightest  intimation  of  it.  For  having  written  a  minute  descrip¬ 
tion  of  his  Figure,  from  his  wig  to  his  slippers,  a  thought  occurred 
that  it  might  probably  excite  some  person  to  delineate  it,  and 
I  might  have  the  mortification  of  seeing  it  hung  up  at  a  Print- 
shop  as  the  greatest  curiosity  ever  exhibited. 

His  best  dress  was,  at  that  time,  so  very  mean,  that  one  after¬ 
noon  as  he  was  following  some  ladies  up  stairs,  on  a  visit  to 
a  lady  of  fashion  *,  the  Housemaid,  not  knowing  him,  suddenly  . 
seized  him  by  the  shoulder,  and  exclaimed,  ‘  Where  are  you 
going  ? 5  striving  at  the  same  time  to  drag  him  back  ;  but  a 
gentleman  who  was  a  few  steps  behind  prevented  her  from  doing 
or  saying  more,  and  Mr.  Johnson  growled  all  the  way  up  stairs, 
as  well  he  might.  He  seemed  much  chagrined  and  apparently 
disposed  to  revenge  the  insult  of  the  maid  upon  the  mistress. 
Unluckily,  whilst  in  this  humour,  a  lady  of  high  rank 1  2  happening 
to  call  on  Miss  Cotterel,  he  was  much  offended  with  her  for  not 
introducing  him  to  her  Ladyship,  at  least  not  in  the  manner  he 
liked,  and  still  more  for  her  seeming  to  shew  more  attention  to 
this  Lady  than  to  him.  After  sitting  some  time  silent,  meditating 
how  to  down 3  Miss  C.,  he  address’d  himself  to  Mr.  Reynolds,  who 
sat  next  him,  and,  after  a  few  introductory  words,  with  a  loud 
voice  said,  ‘  I  wonder  which  of  us  two  could  get  most  money  by 
his  trade  in  one  week,  were  we  to  work  hard  at  it  from  morning 
till  night.’  I  don’t  remember  the  answer ;  but  I  know  that  the 
lady,  rising  soon  after,  went  away  without  knowing  what  trade 
they  were  of.  She  might  probably  suspect  Mr.  Johnson  to  be 
a  poor  author  by  his  dress,  and  because  neither  a  Porter,  a  Chair¬ 
man,  or  a  blacksmith,  Trades  much  more  suitable  to  his  apparent 
abilities,  were  not  quite  so  suitable  to  the  place  she  saw  him  in. 
This  incident  Dr.  Johnson  used  to  mention  with  great  glee — how 
he  had  downed  Miss  C.,  though  at  the  same  time  he  professed 
a  great  friendship  and  esteem  for  that  lady. 


1  Miss  Cotterell.  Life ,  i.  246. 
See  ib.  n.  2  for  Northcote’s  version 
of  this  story. 

2  Lady  Fitzroy.  Miss  REYNOLDS. 

According  to  the  account  Sir  Joshua 
gave  to  Boswell  there  were  two  ladies 
of  high  rank,  one  of  whom  was  the 


Duchess  of  Argyle. 

3  Johnson  talking  of  Robertson 
said  : — ‘  I  downed  him  with  the  King 
of  Prussia.’  Ib.  iii.  335.  He  wrote 
to  Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘  Long  live  Mrs. 
G — that  downs  mymistress.’  Letters , 
ii.  73.  See  also  ante,  i.  169. 


It 


262 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


It  is  certain  that,  for  such  kind  of  mortifications,  he  never  ex¬ 
press’d  any  concern  ;  but  on  other  occasions  he  has  shewn  the 
most  amiable  sorrow  for  the  offence  he  has  given x,  particularly  if 
it  seemed  to  involve  the  slightest  disrespect  to  the  church  or  to 
its  ministers  2. 

I  shall  never  forget  with  what  regret  he  spoke  of  the  rude 
reply  he  made  to  a  Revd  Divine,  a  Dignitary  of  the  Church3, 
on  his  saying  that  men  never  improved  after  the  age  of  forty-five4. 
‘That  is  not  true,  Sir/  said  Johnson.  ‘You,  who  perhaps  are 
forty-eight,  may  still  improve  if  you  will  try ;  I  wish  you  would 
set  about  it ;  and  I  am  afraid/  he  added,  ‘  there  is  great  room 
for  it 5  ;  ’  and  this  was  said  in  rather  a  large  Party  of  gentlemen 


1  See  ante ,  i.  453,  where  Murphy- 
says  that  ‘  when  the  fray  was  over 
Johnson  generally  softened  into  re¬ 
pentance.’  He  wrote  to  Dr.  Taylor 
in  1756:  —  ‘When  I  am  musing 
alone,  I  feel  a  pang  for  every 
moment  that  any  human  being  has 
by  my  peevishness  or  obstinacy  spent 
in  uneasiness.’  Letters,  i.  72.  More 
than  twenty  years  later  he  said  in 
Miss  Burney’s  hearing  :  —  ‘I  am 
always  sorry  when  I  make  bitter 
speeches,  and  I  never  do  it  but  when 
I  am  insufferably  vexed.’  Mme. 
D’Arblay’s  Diary ,  i.  13 1. 

2  Yet  when  some  clergymen  in  his 
company  ‘  thought  that  they  should 
appear  to  advantage  by  assuming 
the  lax  jollity  of  men  of  the  world] 
he  said,  ‘  by  no  means  in  a  whisper, 
“  This  merriment  of  parsons  is  mighty 
offensive.”  ’  Life ,  iv.  76. 

3  Dr.  Barnard,  Dean  of  Derry; 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Killaloe.  Lb. 
iii.  84;  iv.  1 15.  He  is  ‘the  good 
Dean  ’  of  Goldsmith’s  Retaliation , 

‘  Who  mix’d  reason  with  pleasure 
and  wisdom  with  mirth.’ 

4  ‘  Of  this  assertion  (writes  Miss 
Edgeworth)  my  father  always  doubted 
the  truth,  and  he  opposed  the  prin¬ 
ciple,  as  injurious  to  the  cause  of 


knowledge  and  virtue,  and  tending 
to  lessen  the  energy  an,d  happiness 
of  a  large  portion  of  human  exist¬ 
ence.’  Memoirs  of  R.  L.  Edgeworth , 
ed.  1844,  p.  476. 

Swift  seems  to  refer  to  this  belief 
when  he  makes  the  spot  in  the  fore¬ 
head  of  every  Struldbrug  change 
from  time  to  time  till  he  became  five 
and  forty,  when  ‘it  never  admitted 
any  further  alteration.’  Voyage  to 
Lafiuta ,  ch.  x. 

5  Boswell  recorded  in  his  note¬ 
book  : — ‘  The  Dean  of  Derry,  Dr. 
Barnard,  was  maintaining  in  177—, 
that  a  man  never  improves  after 
five-and-forty.  Johnson  very  justly 
took  the  opposite  side.  “  Why 
should  not  a  man  improve  then,” 
said  he,  “  if  he  has  the  means 
of  improvement?”  The  Dean  per¬ 
sisted  in  his  errour.  Johnson  an¬ 
grily  said,  “  I  do  not  say  but  there 
are  some  exceptions  ;  pray,  Sir,  how 
old  are  you  ?”  The  Dean  was  much 
hurt ;  came  over  it  again  and  again 
at  the  time,  and  afterwards  wrote 
the  verses  which  ironically  intro¬ 
duces  [sic]  J ohnson’s  politeness.  But 
the  Dean  told  me  at  the  dinner  of 
the  Royal  Academicians,  23  April, 
1776,  that  he  had  a  very  great  re- 

and 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


263 


and  ladies  at  dinner.  Soon  after  the  ladies  withdrew  from  the 
table,  Dr.  Johnson  follow’d  them,  and,  sitting  down  by  the  Lady 
of  the  House  1i  he  said,  f  I  am  very  sorry  for  having  spoken  so 

rudely  to  the  - c  You  very  well  may,  Sir.’  ‘Yes,’  he  said, 

‘  it  was  highly  improper  to  speak  in  that  style  to  a  minister  of 
the  Gospel 2,  and  I  am  the  more  hurt  on  reflecting  with  what 

mild  dignity  he  received  it.’  When  the - came  up  into  the 

Drawing-Room,  Dr.  Johnson  immediately  rose  from  his  seat, 
and  made  him  sit  on  the  sophy  [.szk]  by  him,  and  with  such 
a  beseeching  look  for  pardon,  and  with  such  fond  gestures — 
literally  smoothing  down  his  arms  and  his  knees — tokens  of 

penitence,  which  were  so  graciously  received  by  the  -  as 

to  make  Dr.  Tohnson  verv  haopv.  and  not  a  little  added  to 


the  esteem  and  respect  he  had 
character 3. 

The  next  morning  the  - 

spect  for  Johnson.  “I  love  him,” 
said  he,  “  but  he  does  not  love  me,” 
and  he  complained  of  his  rough, 
harsh  manners,  saying  that  when  he 
smiled  he  showed  the  teeth  at  the 
corner  of  his  mouth,  like  a  dog  that 
is  going  to  bite.  He  said,  ‘‘Johnson 
is  right  ninety-nine  times  out  of  a 
hundred  ;  I  think  with  him.”  “  But 
you  do  not  feel  with  him,”  said  I. 
“No,”  said  the  Dean.  “In  short, 
he  is  not  a  gentleman.”  The  Dean 
told  me  he  thought  of  answering 
Gibbon,  and  would  be  glad  to  talk 
with  Johnson  of  it.  When  I  came 
to  Bath  Johnson  said  the  Dean  was 
mistaken.  He  loved  him  very  well, 
though  he  disapproved  of  his  being 
out  of  place,  by  living  so  much 
among  wits,  and  being  member  of 
a  midnight  club.  (That  was  ours.) 
He  was  pleased  with  his  design  of 
answering  Gibbon,  and  said  he  would 
be  glad  to  talk  with  him.’  Morriso?i 
Autographs ,  2nd  series,  i.  371. 

The  ‘  midnight  club  ’  was  the  Lite¬ 
rary  Club.  Barnard  joined  it  in 


previously  entertained  for  his 

called  on  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds 

December,  1775.  I  do  n°t  think  he 
answered  Gibbon. 

1  Miss  Reynolds,  if,  as  Richard 
Burke  says,  the  scene  took  place  in 
Sir  Joshua’s  house.  Burke  Corres. 
i.  403. 

2  ‘I  asked  Dr.  Johnson  if  he  did 
not  think  the  Dean  of  Derry  a  very 
agreeable  man,  to  which  he  made 
no  answer ;  and  on  my  repeating 
my  question,  “Child,”  said  he,  “I 
will  not  speak  anything  in  favour  of 
a  Sabbath-breaker,  to  please  you, 
nor  any  one  else.’  H.  More’s  Me¬ 
moirs,  i.  394. 

Bishop  Barnard  (says  Bentham) 
was  ‘  an  unbeliever.  I  met  him  at 
Owen  Cambridge’s,  who  had  a  house 
of  which  he  was  very  proud  near 
Pope’s,  at  Twickenham.  The  Bishop 
was  much  among  the  aristocracy — 
a  man  of  the  world  and  a  clever 
man.’  Bentham’s  Works ,  x.  285. 

3  Johnson  said  of  him  : — ‘  No  man 
ever  paid  more  attention  to  another 
than  he  has  done  to  me.’  Life ,  iv. 

II5* 


with 


264 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


with  the  following  verses z,  which  I  should  not  have  taken  the 
liberty  to  insert,  had  I  not  known  that  they  had  already  appear’d 
in  Print : — 

I  lately  thought  no  man  alive 
Could  ere  improve  past  forty-five, 

And  ventured  to  assert  it. 

The  observation  was  not  new, 

But  seem’d  to  me  so  just  and  true 
That  none  could  controvert  it. 

1  No,  Sir,5  says  Johnson,  ‘’tis  not  so, 

5Tis  your  mistake,  and  I  can  show 
An  instance,  if  you  doubt  it. 

You,  who  perhaps  are  forty-eight, 

May  still  improve,  ’tis  not  too  late : 

I  wish  you’d  set  about  it.’ 

Encouraged  thus  to  mend  my  faults, 

I  turned  his  councel  [sic]  in  my  thoughts 
Which  way  I  could  apply  it ; 

Genius  I  knew  was  past  my  reach, 

For  who  can  learn  what  none  can  teach? 

And  wit — I  could  not  buy  it. 

Then  come,  my  friends,  and  try  your  skill; 

You  may  improve  me  if  you  will, 

(My  Books  are  at  a  Distance) ; 

With  you  I’ll  live  and  learn,  and  then 
Instead  of  books  I  shall  read  men, 

So  lend  me  your  assistance. 

Dear  knight  of  Plympton 1  2  teach  me  how 
To  suffer  with  unclouded  Brow 
And  smile  serene  as  thine, 

The  jest  uncouth  and  truth  severe ; 

Like  thee  to  turn  my  deafest  ear, 

And  calmly  drink  my  wine. 

Thou  say’st  not  only  skill  is  gain’d, 

But  genius,  too,  may  be  attain’d, 

By  studious  application3; 

Thy  temper  mild,  thy  genius  fine, 

I  ’ll  study  till  I  make  them  mine 
By  constant  meditation. 


1  See  Life,  iv.  431,  for  various  read¬ 
ings  in  these  lines. 

2  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  who  was 


born  at  Plympton. 

3  See  ante ,  i.  314  n.,  and  Life ,  ii. 
437?  n.  2. 

Thy 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


265 


Thy  art  of  pleasing  teach  me,  Garrick, 

Thou  who  reverest  [reversest]  odes  Pindaric, 

A  second  time  read  o’er1; 

Oh  !  could  we  read  thee  backwards  too, 

Last  thirty  years  thou  should st  review, 

And  charm  us  thirty  more. 

If  I  have  thoughts  and  can’t  express  ’em, 
Gibbons  [sic]  shall  teach  me  how  to  dress  ’em 
In  terms  select  and  terse ; 

Jones  teach  me  modesty  and  Greek2; 

Smith,  how  to  think 3 ;  Burke,  how  to  speak  ; 
And  Beauclerk  to  converse4. 

Let  Johnson  teach  me  how  to  place 
In  fairest  light  each  borrow’d  Grace 
From  him  I’ll  learn  to  write: 

Copy  his  free  and  easy  style, 

And  from  the  roughness  of  his  file 
Grow,  like  himself,  Polite. 


Dr.  Johnson’s  rude  repulse  given  to  a  gentleman  who  ask’d 
his  leave  to  introduce  the  Abbe  Raynal 5  to  him,  is  I  believe 
too  well  known  to  need  a  repetitibn.  Something  similar  to  that 
was  his  answer  to  a  gentleman  at  the  literary  club,  who,  on 

presenting  his  Friend,  said,  ‘  This,  Sir,  is  Mr.  V - y  6.’  ‘  I  see 

him,’  said  Dr.  Johnson,  and  immediately  turn’d  away. 

His  reply  to  Dr.  Grainger,  who  \^as  reading  his  manuscript 
Poem  to  him  of  the  sugar-cane,  will  probably  be  thought  more 
excusable.  When  he  came  to  the  line,  £  Say,  shall  I  sing  of 
Rats?’  ‘No,’  cry’d  Dr.  Johnson  with  great  vehemency.  This 


1  ‘  Mr.  Cumberland  has  written  an 
Ode ,  as  he  modestly  calls  it,  in  praise 
of  Gray’s  Odes.  .  .  .  Garrick  read  it 
the  other  night  at  Mr.  Beauclerk’s, 
who  comprehended  so  little  what  it 
was  about,  that  he  desired  Garrick 
to  read  it  backwards,  and  try  if  it 

•  would  not  be  equally  good  ;  he  did, 
and  it  was.’  Walpole’s  Letters ,  vi.  298. 

2  Sir  William  Jones,  who  dying  at 

the  age  of  forty- seven  had  ‘  studied 

eight  languages  critically,  eight  less 

perfectly,  but  all  intelligible  with  a 

dictionary,  and  twelve  least  per¬ 
fectly,  but  all  attainable.’  Teign- 


mouth’s  Life  of  Sir  W.  fanes ,  ed. 
1815,  p.  465. 

3  Adam  Smith.  For  his  talk  see 
Life,  iv.  24,  n.  2. 

4  Ante ,  i.  273,  469. 

All  the  men  mentioned  in  these 
verses,  as  well  as  Barnard,  were 
members  of  the  Literary  Club. 

5  See  ante,  i.  21 1. 

6  ‘  When  Mr.  Vesey  was  proposed 
as  a  member  of  the  Literary  Club 
Mr.  Burke  began  by  saying  that  he 
was  a  man  of  gentle  manners.  “Sir,” 
said  Johnson,  “you  need  say  no 
more.  When  you  have  said  a  man 

he 


266 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


he  related  to  me  himself,  laughing  heartily  at  the  conceit  of 
Dr.  Grainger’s  refractory  Muse !  Where  it  happen’d  I  do  not 
know,  but  I  am  certain,  very  certain,  that  it  was  not,  as  Mr. 
Boswell  asserts,  at  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s1,  for  they  were  not, 
I  believe,  even  personally  known  to  each  other. 

But  some  very  beautiful  lines  out  of  another  Poem,  by  the 
same  Author,  I  have  often  heard  him  repeat,  and  express  great 
admiration  of  them. 


‘  O  Solitude,  romantick  maid, 

Whether  by  nodding  towers  you  tread ; 

Or  haunt  the  desert’s  trackless  gloom, 

Or  hover  o’er  the  yawning  tomb  ; 

Or  climb  the  Andes’  clifted  side, 

Or  by  the  Nile’s  coy  source  abide; 

~  t 

Or,  starting  from  your  half  year’s  sleep, 

From  Hecla  view  the  thawing  deep; 

Or  at  the  purple  dawn  of  day, 

Tadmor’s  marble  waste  survey2.’ 

i  j  i 

I  shall  never  forget  the  concordance  of  the  sound  of  his 
voice,  with  the  grandeur  of  those  images 3 ;  nor  indeed  for  the 
same  reason  the  gothick4  dignity  of  his  Aspect,  his  look  and 
manner,  when  repeating  sublime  passages. 

But  what  was  very  remarkable,  though  his  cadence  in  reading 
poetry  was  so  judiciously  emphatical  as  to  give  a  double  force 
to  the  words  he  utter’d,  yet  in  reading  prose,  particularly 
common  and  familiar  subjects,  narrations,  essays,  letters,  &c., 
nothing  could  be  more  injudicious  than  his  manner,  beginning 
every  period  with  a  pompous  accent,  and  reading  it  with  a  whine, 
or  with  a  kind  of  spasmodic  struggle  for  utterance ;  and  this,  not 
from  any  natural  infirmity,  but  from  a  strange  singularity",  in 


of  gentle  manners  you  have  said 
enough.”  ’  Life ,  iv.  28. 

1  Life ,  ii.  453.  See  ib.  ii.  454,  n .  2, 
where  Johnson  said: — ‘Percy,  Sir, 
was  angry  with  me  for  laughing  at  The 
Sugar-Cane ;  for  he  had  a  mind  to 
make  a  great  thing  of  Grainger’s 
rats.’ 

2  He  repeated  these  lines  at  Ash¬ 


bourne,  and  observed  : — ‘  This,  Sir,  is 
very  noble.’  Ib.  iii.  197. 

3  After  ‘images’  Miss  Reynolds 
had  at  first  written  : — ‘  Nor  indeed  for 
this  same  reason  the  sublime  pleasure 
I  have  received  on  hearing  him  read 
some  passages  out  of  Homer.’ 

4  She  means,  I  think,  ‘  the  rude 
dignity.’  See  ante ,  i.  478. 


reading 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


267 


reading  on,  in  one  breath,  as  if  he  had  made  a  resolution  not  to 
respire  till  he  had  closed  the  sentence  *. 

Some  lines  also  he  used  to  repeat  in  his  best  manner,  written 
in  memory  of  Bishop  Boulter,  which  I  believe  are  not  much 
known  : — 


‘  Some  write  their  wrongs  in  marble :  he,  more  just, 

Stoop’d  down  serene  and  wrote  them  in  the  dust; 

Trod  under  foot,  the  sport  of  every  wind, 

Swept  from  the  earth,  and  blotted  from  his  mind. 

There,  secret  in  the  grave,  he  bade  them  lie, 

And  grieved  they  could  not  ’scape  the  Almighty’s  eye2.’ 

A  lady,  who  had  learnt  them  from  Dr.  Johnson,  thought  she 
had  made  a  mistake,  or  had  forgotten  some  words,  as  she  could 
not  make  out  a  reference  to  the  particle  there ,  and  mention’d 


1  The  following  passage  she  has 
scored  out  : — ‘  His  sonorous  voice, 
so  judiciously  emphatical,  the  apost- 
lick  [sic]  dignity  of  his  aspect,  his 
look,  his  manner,  when  repeating  any 
sublime  passages,  either  of  poetry 
or  of  prose,  gave  a  double  force  to 
the  words  he  utter’d.  But  this  indeed 
can  only  be  said  of  him  when  reading 
grand  or  solemn  subjects,  for  in  read¬ 
ing  common  prose  his  manner,  or 
rather  his  tone  of  voice,  was  as  dis¬ 
gusting  as  vice  versa  it  was  enchant¬ 
ing,  proportionally  so  as  the  subject 
was  common  and  familiar,  which  all  his 

i 

acquaintance  must  certainly  remem¬ 
ber,  especially  if  they  ever  heard  him 
read  an  [sic]  newspaper,  magazine, 
letters,’  &c. 

For  his  reading  poetry  see  ante , 
i.  347,  457,  and  Life,  v.  115*  When  he 
read  a  passage  in  The  Spectator 
Boswell  recorded  :  — ‘  He  read  so  well 
that  everything  acquired  additional 
weight  and  grace  from  his  utterance.’ 
Life ,  ii.  212. 

2  From  Boulter's  Monument  by 
Samuel  Madden.  See  ante,  ii.  212, 
for  Johnson’s  castigation  of  that  work. 
Swift  had  found  ‘  one  comfortable 
circumstance’  in  the  appointment  of 


Boulter  to  the  primacy.  He  would 
be  opposed  to  Wood’s  half-pence. 
‘Money,’  he  wrote,  ‘the  great  divider 
of  the  world,  has  by  a  strange  revo¬ 
lution  been  the  great  uniter  of  a  most 
divided  people.  Who  would  leave 
a  hundred  pounds  a  year  in  England 
(a  country  of  freedom)  to  be  paid 
a  thousand  in  Ireland  out  of  Wood’s 
exchequer  ?  The  gentleman  they 
have  lately  made  primate  would  never 
quit  his  seat  in  an  English  House  of 
Lords  and  his  preferments  at  Oxford 
and  Bristol,  worth  twelve  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  for  four  times  the 
denomination  here,  but  not  half 
the  value.’  Swift’s  Woi'ks ,  xii. 
162.  Hawkins  writes  : — ‘  Dr.  Mad¬ 
den  some  years  afterwards,  being 
mindful  to  republish  the  poem,  sub¬ 
mitted  it  to  Johnson’s  correction,  and 
I  found  among  his  books  a  copy  of 
the  poem,  with  a  note  in  a  spare  leaf 
thereof,  purporting  that  the  author 
had  made  him  a  visit,  and  for  a  very 
few  remarks  and  alterations  of  it  had 
presented  him  with  ten  guineas. 
Hawkins,  p.  391.  In  the  British 
Museum  there  are  two  copies  of  the 
poem,  one  printed  in  Dublin  and 
one  in  London,  both  published  the 

it 


268 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


it  to  him.  No,  he  said,  she  had  not,  and,  after  seesawing  a  few 
minutes,  express’d  some  surprise  that  the  defect  should  have 
escaped  his  observation. 

Sometime  after  he  told  the  Lady  that  these  lines  were  inserted 
in  the  last  edition  of  his  Dictionary,  under  the  word  sport . 
But  I  had  reason  to  believe  that  he  mistrusted  they  were  not 
a  literal  copy  of  the  original  V  as  about  this  time  I  well  remember 
he  express'd  great  solicitude,  and  made  much  enquiry  among 
the  Booksellers,  to  procure  the  printed  poem ;  whether  he 
succeeded  or  not  I  never  heard. 

Of  Goldsmith’s  Traveller  he  used  to  speak  in  terms  of  the 
highest  commendation2.  A  lady3  I  remember,  who  had  the 
pleasure  of  hearing  Dr.  Johnson*  read  it  from  end  to  end, 
before  it  was  publish’d  just  as  it  came  out  from  the  press,  to 
testify  her  admiration  of  it,  exclaim’d,  ‘  I  never  more  shall  think 
Dr.  Goldsmith  ugly.’  In  having  thought  so,  however,  she  was  by 
no  means  singular ;  an  instance  of  which  I  am  rather  inclined 
to  mention,  because  it  involves  a  remarkable  one  of  Dr.  Johnson’s 
ready  wit ;  for  this  lady,  one  evening,  being  in  a  large  Party, 
was  call’d  upon  after  supper  for  her  Toast,1  and  seeming  embar¬ 
rass’d,  she  was  desired  to  give  the  uglest  [sie]  man  she  knew  ; 
and  she  immediately  named  Dr.  Goldsmith.  On  which  a  lady 
on  the  other  side  of  the  Table  rose  up  and  reach’d  across  to 
shake  hands  with  her,  expressing  some  desire  of  being  better 
acquainted  with  her,  it  being  th-e  first  time  they  had  met ;  on 
which  Dr.  Johnson  said, c  Thus  the  Ancients,  on  the  commence¬ 
ment  of  their  Friendships,  used  to  sacrifice  a  Beast  betwixt  them.’ 


same  year,  1745.  I  have  not  dis¬ 
covered  any  variations  in  the  text.' 
No  second  edition  is  known  of  in 
Ireland.  If  Hawkins’s  statement  is 
true,  the  poem,  as  corrected  by 
Johnson,  has  never  been  printed. 
In  that  case  the  corrected  copy  may 
still  be  in  existence.  It  seems,  how¬ 
ever,  likely  that  Hawkins  was  mis¬ 
taken. 

1  The  first  of  these  lines  runs  in 
the  printed  poem  (p.  73) : — ‘  Men 
grave  their  wrongs,’  &c.  In  the 


Dictio?iary  Johnson  gives  it : — ‘  Some 
grave/  &c.  He  quoted  it  to  Miss 
Reynolds  : — ‘  Some  write.’ 

2  ‘  He  said  of  Goldsmith’s  Travel¬ 
ler ,  “  There  has  not  been  so  fine 
a  poem  since  Pope’s  time.”  ’  Life , 
ii.  5.  See  also  ib.  iii.  252.  In  the  in¬ 
terval  had  been  published  Thomson’s 
Castle  of  Indole?ice,  his  own  Vanity 
of  Human  Wishes ,  and  Gray's  Elegy. 

3  Mrs.  Cholmondely.  MISS  REY¬ 
NOLDS.  For  this  lady  see  Life ,  iii. 
318,  and  ante,  i.  451. 


Sir 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


269 


Sir  Joshua,  I  have  often  thought,  never  exhibited  a  more 
striking  proof  of  his  excellence  in  portrait-Painting,  than  in 
giving  Dignity  to  Dr.  Goldsmith’s  countenance,  and  yet  pre¬ 
serving  a  strong  likeness L  For  on  the  contrary  his  Aspect 
from  head  to  foot  impress'd  every  one  at  first  sight  with  an 
idea  of  his  being  a  low  mechanic;  particularly,  I  believe,  a 
journeyman  tailor1 2.  A  little  concurring  instance  of  this  I  well 
remember.  One  Day  at  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s,  in  company  with 
some  gentlemen  and  Ladies,  he  was  relating  how  he  had  been 
insulted  by  some  gentlemen  he  had  accidently  met  (I  think 
at  a  Coffee-House).  c  The  fellow,’  he  said  ‘took  me  for  a  tailor!’ 
on  which  all  the  Party  either  laugh’d  aloud  or  shew’d  they 
suppress’d  a  laugh3. 

This  little  anecdote  of  Goldsmith  is  similar  to  that  which 
Mr.  Boswell  relates  of  Johnson’s  having  told  him  that  a  gentle¬ 
woman  had  offer’d  him  a  shilling  for  handing  her  across  a  street. 
But  I  thought  it  not  a  little  surprising  that  he  should  add, 
‘No  person  would  have  believed  this,  if  Johnson  had  not  said 
it  himself4.’ 

Dr.  Johnson  seem’d  to  have  much  more  kindness  for  Gold- 


1  C.  R.  Leslie  points  out  ‘  that  the 
ideal  drapery  of  this  portrait  and  the 
view  of  the  face  almost  exactly  corre¬ 
spond  to  the  painter’s  treatment  of 
his  very  early  portrait  of  his  own 
father.’  Leslie  and  Taylor’s  Reynolds , 
i.  361. 

‘  I  remember  Miss  Reynolds  said 
of  this  portrait  that  it  was  a  very 
great  likeness  of  the  Doctor,  but  the 
most  flattered  picture  she  ever  knew 
her  brother  to  have  painted.’  North- 
cote’s  Reynolds ,  i.  326. 

2  ‘  His  person  was  short,  his  coun¬ 
tenance  coarse  and  vulgar,  his  deport¬ 
ment  that  of  a  scholar  awkwardly 
affecting  the  easy  gentleman.’  Life, 

i.  413.  ‘His  face,’  says  Dr.  Percy, 
‘  was  marked  with  strong  lines  of 
thinking.  His  first  appearance  was 
not  captivating.’  Goldsmith’s  Misc . 

Works ,  i.  1 1 7. 


3  In  one  of  Miss  Reynolds’s  manu¬ 
scripts  the  story  is  introduced  as 
follows  : — ‘  Dr.  Goldsmith  was  indeed 
very  ugly,  he  had  a  vulgar  mean 
aspect,  more  the  look  of  a  journey¬ 
man  taylor  from  head  to  foot  than 
any  man  I  ever  saw,  which  created 
a  laugh  throughout  a  pretty  large 
company  of  gentlemen  and  ladies,  on 
his  saying  he  had  been  insulted,’  &c. 

4  Miss  Reynolds  misunderstood 
Boswell,  who  wrote : — ‘  This,  if  told 
by  most  people,  would  have  been 
thought  an  invention ;  when  told  by 
J ohnson,  it  was  believed  by  his  friends 
as  much  as  if  they  had  seen  what 
passed.’  Life ,  ii.  434.  Boswell  was 
thinking  of  the  improbability  of  such 
a  thing  happening  to  any  one.  The 
gentlewoman,  it  must  be  remembered, 
‘  was  somewhat  in  liquor.’ 


smith, 


270 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


smith,  than  Goldsmith  had  for  him  x.  He  always  appear’d  to  be 
overawed  by  Johnson1  2,  particularly  when  in  company  with  people 
of  any  consequence,  visibly  as  if  impress’d  with  fear  doubtless  of 
disgrace ;  for  I  have  been  witness  to  many  mortifications  he  has 
suffer’d  in  his  company:  one  Day  in  particular,  at  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds’s,  a  gentleman  to  whom  he  was  talking  his  best  stop’d 
[sic]  him,  in  the  midst  of  his  discourse,  with  ‘Hush!  hush! 
Dr.  Johnson  is  going  to  say  something3 4.’ 

At  another  time,  a  gentleman  who  was  sitting  between  Dr.  John¬ 
son  and  Dr.  Goldsmith,  and  with  whom  he  had  been  disputing, 
remarked  to  another,  loud  enough  for  Goldsmith  to  hear  him, 

‘  That  he  had  a  fine  time  of  it,  between  Ursa  Major  and  Ursa 
Minor*  V 

Dr.  Johnson  seem’d  to  delight  in  drawing  characters  ;  and 
when  he  [did  so]  con  amore,  delighted  every  one  that  heard  him5. 
Indeed,  I  cannot  say  I  ever  heard  him  draw  any  con  odiare  [sic], 
tho’  he  professed  himself  to  be,  or  at  least  to  love,  a  good 
hater  6. 


1  See,  however,  Life ,  ii.  66,  where 
Goldsmith  said: — ‘Johnson,  to  be 
sure,  has  a  roughness  in  his  manner ; 
but  no  man  alive  has  a  more  tender 
heart.  He  has  nothing  of  the  bear 
but  his  skin' ;  and  ii.  256,  where, 
on  Johnson  asking  his  pardon,  ‘he 
answered  placidly,  “It  must  be  much 
from  you,  Sir,  that  I  take  ill.”  ’ 

2  ‘  Goldsmith  could  sometimes  take 
adventurous  liberties  with  him,  and 
escape  unpunished.’  Ib.  iv.  113. 

3  Ib.  ii.  257. 

4  Boswell’s  father  and  Gray  both 
gave  Johnson  the  name  of  Ursa 
Major.  Ib.  v.  384.  See  ib.  p.  97, 
and  ante ,  i.  270,  where  Johnson  and 
Goldsmith  are  distinguished  by  an 
insolent  fellow  as  Doctor  Major  and 
Doctor  Minor. 

5 ‘Boswell.  “His  power  of  reason¬ 
ing  is  very  strong,  and  he  has  a  pecu¬ 

liar  art  of  drawing  characters,  which 
is  as  rare  as  good  portrait  painting.” 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds.  “He  is 


undoubtedly  admirable  in  this  ;  but, 
in  order  to  mark  the  characters  which 
he  draws,  he  overcharges  them,  and 
gives  people  more  than  they  really 
have,  whether  of  good  or  bad.”  ’  Life , 
iii.  332.  See  also  ii.  306  ;  iii.  20. 

6  Ante ,  i.  204.  In  one  of  her 
MSS.  Miss  Reynolds  continues: — 
‘  But  I  have  remarked  that  his  dis¬ 
like  of  any  one  seldom  prompted 
him  to  say  much  more  than  that  the 
fellow  is  a  blockhead ,  a  poor  creature , 
or  some  such  epithet.’ 

Speaking  of  Churchill  he  said : — 
‘  No,  Sir,  I  called  the  fellow  a  block¬ 
head  at  first,  and  I  will  call  him  a 
blockhead  still.’  Life ,  i.  419.  ‘  Field¬ 
ing  being  mentioned,  Johnson  ex¬ 
claimed,  “  he  was  a  blockhead.”  ’  Ib. 
ii.  173.  He  told  Hector’s  maid¬ 
servant  that  she  was  ‘a  blockhead,’  to 
Boswell’s  surprise,  who  ‘  never  heard 
the  word  applied  to  a  woman  before.* 
Ib.  ii.  456.  Goldsmith  called  Sterne 
‘a  blockhead.’  Ib.  ii.  173,  n.  2. 


It 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


271 


It  is  much  to  be  wish’d,  in  justice  to  Dr.  Johnson’s  character, 
that  the  many  jocular  and  ironical  speeches  which  have  been 
recorded  of  him  had  been  mark’d  as  such,  for  the  information 
of  those  who  were  unacquainted  with  him,  when  not  so  ap¬ 
parently  unlikely  as  the  above  is  to  be  taken  in  a  literal 
sense.  If  he  could  conceive  a  hatred  for  any  person,  it  was 
only  for  the  vicious. 

I  shall  never  forget  the  exalted  character  he  drew  of  his 
Friend  Mr.  Langton.  nor  with  what  energy,  what  fond  delight 
he  expatiated  *in  his  praise,  giving  him  every  perfection  that 
could  adorn  humanity.  Particularly,  I  remember,  he  dwelt  on 
his  mental  acquirements,  as  a  Scholar,  a  Philosopher,  and  a 
Divine,  to  which  he  added  the  finishing  polish  of  the  fine 
Gentleman x.  A  literary  Lady,  Miss  H.  More,  who  was  present 
seem’d  much  struck  with  admiration,  not  only  perhaps  of  the 
excellence  of  Mr.  Langton’s  character,  but  of  Dr.  Johnson’s, 
which  appear’d.  I  thought,  with  redoubled  lustre,  reflected  from 
his  luminous  display  of  the  virtues  of  his  Friend. 

This  brings  to  my  remembrance  the  unparallell’d  eulogium 
which  the  late  Lord  Bath1 2  made  on - 3 *  (a  lady  he  was 


1  ‘We  talked  of  Mr.  Langton. 
Johnson,  with  a  warm  vehemence  of 
affectionate  regard,  exclaimed,  “  The 
earth  does  not  bear  a  worthier  man 
than  Bennet  Langton.5”  Life ,  iii.  161. 
See  also  ante ,  i.  182  n. 

2  William  Pulteney ;  ‘as  a  paltry 
fellow  as  could  be,’  Johnson  called 
him.  Life ,  v.  339.  ‘  The  legacies  he 
has  left  are  trifling,5  wrote  Chester¬ 

field  ;  ‘  for,  in  truth,  he  cared  for 

nobody;  the  words  give  and  bequeath 
were  too  shocking  to  him  to  repeat, 
and  so  he  left  all  in  one  word  to  his 
brother.5  Chesterfield’s  Letters,  iv. 

210.  Smollett  Said  of  his  later 
years  that  ‘  he  incurred  the  con¬ 
tempt  or  detestation  of  mankind, 
and  remained  a  solitary  monument 
of  blasted  ambition.’  History  of 
England ,  iii.  79. 


‘  Through  Clouds  of  Passion  P .  .  ,5s 
views  are  clear, 

He  foams  a  Patriot  to  subside  a 
Peer : 

Impatient  sees  his  country  bought 
and  sold, 

And  damns  the  market  where  he 
takes  no  gold.’ 

Warton’s  Pope’s  Works ,  iv.  347. 

The  eulogium  of  such  a  man  was 
worthless. 

Mrs.  Montagu,  in  her  turn,  puffed 
him.  ‘  His  Lordship’s  talents,5  she 
wrote,  ‘like  colours  in  the  prism, 
formed  of  the  brightest  rays,  are  so 
well  arranged  and  so  happily  mingled 
that,  though  strong  and  vivid,  they 
never  pain  the  sight.’  Letters  of  Mrs. 
Montagu ,  iv.  346. 

3  ‘  I  omit  the  initials  of  this  Lady’s 
name,  in  compliance  to  her  delicacy 

intimately 


272 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


intimately  acquainted  with)  in  speaking  of  her  to  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds.  His  lordship  said,  that  ‘  he  did  not  believe  that 
there  was  a  more  perfect  human  Being  created  ;  or  that  there 

ever  would  be  created,  than  Mrs. - I  give  the  very  words 

I  heard  from  Sir  Joshua’s  own  mouth,  and  from  whom  also 
I  heard  that  he  repeated  them  to  Mr.  Burke ;  and  observing 
that  Lord  Bath  could  not  have  said  more,  and  ‘  I  do  not  think 
that  he  said  too  much,’  was  Mr.  Burke’s  reply.  I  have  also 
heard  Dr.  Johnson  speak  of  this  Lady  in  terms  of  high  admi¬ 
ration.  e  Sir,  that  Lady  exerts  more  mind  in  conversation  than 
any  Person  I  ever  met  with :  Sir,  she  displays  such  powers 
of  ratiocination,  even  radiations  of  intellectual  excellence  as 
are  amazing  V 

On  the  praises  of  Mrs.  Thrale  he  used  to  dwell  with  a  peculiar 
delight,  a  paternal  fondness,  expressive  of  conscious  exultation  in 
being  so  intimately  acquainted  with  her2.  One  day,  in  speaking 
of  her  to  Mr.  Harris,  Author  of  Hermes'* ,  and  expatiating  on 
her  various  perfections, — the  solidity  of  her  virtues,  the  brilliancy 
of  her  wit,  and  the  strength  of  her  understanding,  &c. — he 
quoted  some  lines,  a  stanza,  I  believe,  but  from  what  author  I 
know  not,  with  which  he  concluded  his  most  eloquent  eulogium, 
and  of  these  I  retain’d  but  the  two  last  lines : — 

‘  Virtues — of  such  a  generous  kind, 

Good  in  the  last  recesses  of  the  mind.’ 

Dr.  Johnson  had  a  most  sincere  and  tender  regard  for  Mrs. 
Thr-le,  and  no  wonder  ;  she  would  with  much  apparent  affection 


and  in  compliment  to  the  discerning 
Public. 

This  note  was  written  many  years 
before  Mrs.  Montagu’s  Decease,  but 
left  uncancelled  out  of  Respect  to 
her  memory.’  Miss  Reynolds. 

1  For  Johnson’s  high  praise  of  her 
see  Life ,  iv.  275.  Of  her  pretentious 
Essay  on  Shakespeare  he  said  : — ‘It 
does  her  honour,  but  it  would  do 
nobody  else  honour.’  He  could  not 
get  through  it.  Ib.  ii.  88 ;  v.  245. 
Much  of  her  reputation  was  no  doubt 
due  to  the  splendid  house  she  kept. 


Horace  Walpole  wrote  on  May  27, 
1775  (Letters,  vi.  217): — ‘The  hus¬ 
band  of  Mrs.  Montagu  of  Shake- 
speareshire  is  dead,  and  has  left  her 
an  estate  of  seven  thousand  pounds 
a  year  in  own  power.’  See  ante, 

i.  287,  33 8,  351. 

2  He  wrote  to  her  on  her  second 
marriage  : — ‘  I  who  have  loved  you, 
esteemed  you,  reverenced  you,  and 
served  you,  I  who  long  thought  you 
the  first  of  womankind,’  &c.  Letters, 

ii.  406. 

3  Ante,  ii.  70. 


overlook 


by  Miss  Reynolds . 


273 


overlook  his  foibles.  One  Day  at  her  own  Table,  before  a  large 
company,  he  spoke  so  very  roughly  to  her,  that  every  person 
present  was  surprised  how  she  could  bear  it  so  placidly ;  and 
on  the  Ladies  withdrawing,  one  of  them  express’d  great  astonish¬ 
ment  how  Dr.  Johnson  could  speak  in  such  harsh  terms  to  her! 
But  to  this  she  said  no  more  than  ‘  Oh !  Dear  good  man !  * 
This  short  reply  appeared  so  strong  a  proof  of  her  generous 
virtues  that  the  Lady  took  the  first  opportunity  of  commu¬ 
nicating  it  to  him,  repeating  her  own  animadversion  that  had 
occasion’d  it.  He  seem  d  much  delighted*  with  this  intelligence, 
and  sometime  after,  as  he  was  lying  back  in  his  Chair,  seeming 
to  be  half  asleep,  but  more  evidently  musing  on  this  pleasing 
incident,  he  repeated  in  a  loud  whisper,  ‘  Oh  !  Dear  good  man  !  5 
This  was  a  common  habit  of  his,  when  anything  very  flattering, 
or  very  extraordinary  ingross’d  his  thoughts,  and  I  rather 
wonder  that  none  of  his  Biographers  have  taken  any  notice 
of  it,  or  of  his  praying  in  the  same  manner ;  at  least  I  do  not 
know  that  they  have1  2. 

Nor  has  any  one,  I  believe,  described  his  extraordinary 
gestures  or  anticks  with  his  hands  and  feet,  particularly  when 
passing  over  the  threshold  of  a  Door,  or  rather  before  he  would 
venture  to  pass  through  any  doorway3.  On  entering  Sir  Joshua’s 
house  with  poor  Mrs.  Williams,  a  blind  lady  who  lived  with  him, 
he  would  quit  her  hand,  or  else  whirl  her  about  on  the  steps 
as  he  whirled  and  twisted  about  to  perform  his  gesticulations  ; 
and  as  soon  as  he  had  finish’d,  he  would  give  a  sudden  spring, 
and  make  such  an  extensive  stride  over  the  threshold,  as  if  he 
was  trying  for  a  wager  how  far  he  could  stride,  Mrs.  Williams 
standing  groping  about  outside  the  door,  unless  the  servant  or 
the  mistress  of  the  House  more  commonly  took  hold  of  her 


1  Miss  Reynolds  had  at  first  written, 
instead  of  the  words  in  italics  : — 
‘Never  shall  I  forget  how  delighted 
he  seemed.’ 

2  For  his  habit  of  talking  to  him¬ 
self  see  ante ,  i.  439;  ii.  216. 

3  For  his  touching  the  posts  as  he 
walked  along  see  Life ,  i.  485  n. 

Lord  Carlisle  recorded  in  his  Diary 

VOL.  II. 


on  Feb.  14,  1852  : — ‘  Macaulay  owns 
to  the  feeling  Dr.  Johnson  had,  of 
thinking  oneself  bound  sometimes  to 
touch  a  particular  rail  or  post,  and 
to  tread  always  in  the  middle  of  the 
paving  stone.  I  certainly  have  had 
this  very  strongly.’  Trevelyan’s 
Macaiday ,  ed.  1877,  ii.  199. 


T 


hand 


274 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


hand  to  conduct  her  in,  leaving  Dr.  Johnson  to  perform  at  the 
Parlour  Door  much  the  same  exercise  over  again. 

But  the  strange  positions  in  which  he  would  place  his  feet 
(generally  I  think  before  he  began  his  straddles,  as  if  necessarily 
preparatory)  are  scarcely  credible.  Sometimes  he  would  make 
the  back  part  of  his  heels  to  touch,  sometimes  the  extremity  of 
his  toes,  as  if  endeavouring  to  form  a  triangle,  or  some  geo¬ 
metrical  figure  x,  and  as  for  his  gestures  with  his  hands,  they 
were  equally  as  strange  ;  sometimes  he  would  hold  them  up  with 
some  of  his  fingers  bent,  as  if  he  had  been  seized  with  the  cramp, 
and  sometimes  at  his  Breast  in  motion  like  those  of  a  jockey  on 
full  speed ;  and  often  would  he  lift  them  up  as  high  as  he  could 
stretch  over  his  head,  for  some  minutes-  But  the  manoeuvre 
that  used  the  most  particularly  to  engage  the  attention  of  the 
company  was  his  stretching  out  his  arm  with  a  full  cup  of  tea  in 
his  hand,  in  every  direction,  often  to  the  great  annoyance  of  the 
person  who  sat  next  him,  indeed  to  the  imminent  danger  of  their 
cloaths,  perhaps  of  a  Lady’s  Court  dress  ;  sometimes  he  would 
twist  himself  round  with  his  face  close  to  the  back  of  his  chair, 
and  finish  his  cup  of  tea,  breathing  very  hard,  as  if  making  a 
laborious  effort  to  accomplish  it. 

What  could  have  induced  him  to  practise  such  extraordinary 
gestures  who  can  divine  !  his  head,  his  hands  and  his  feet  often  in 
motion  at  the  same  time.  Many  people  have  supposed  that  they 
were  the  natural  effects  of  a  nervous  disorder,  but  had  that  been 
the  case  he  could  not  have  sat  still  when  he  chose,  which  he 
did  2,  and  so  still  indeed  when  sitting  for  his  picture,  as  often  to 
have  been  complimented  with  being  a  pattern  for  sitters3,  no 


1  In  one  of  her  manuscripts  Miss 
Reynolds  wrote  : — 

‘  Sometimes  he  would  with  great 
earnestness  place  his  feet  in  a  par¬ 
ticular  position,  sometimes  making 
his  heels  to  touch,  sometimes  his 
toes,  as  if  he  was  endeavouring  to 
form  a  triangle,  at  least  the  two  sides 
of  one,  and  after  having  finish’d  he 
would  beat  his  sides,  or  the  skirts  of 
his  coat,  repeatedly  with  his  hands, 
as  if  for  joy  that  he  had  done  his 


duty,  and  what  was  very  extra¬ 
ordinary,  after  he  had  quitted  the 
place,  particularly  at  the  entrance  of 
a  door,  he  would  return  to  the  same 
spot,  evidently,  I  thought,  from  a 
scruple  of  conscience,  and  perform  it 
all  over  again.’ 

2  Ante ,  ii.  222. 

3  Reynolds’s  portrait  of  Johnson, 
which  had  belonged  to  Boswell,  and 
afterwards  to  his  son  James,  was 
sold  on  June  3,  1825,  to  Mr.  Graves, 

slight 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


275 


slight  proof  of  his  complaisance  or  his  good-nature.  I  remember 
a  lady  told  him  he  sat  like  Patience  on  a  monument  smiling  at 
grief1,  which  made  him  laugh  heartily  at  the  ridiculous  coinci¬ 
dence  of  the  idea  with  his  irksome  situation ;  for  irksome  it 
doubtless  was  to  him,  restraining  himself  as  he  did,  even  from 
his  common  and  most  habitual  motion  of  seesawing,  the  more 
difficult  for  him  to  effect  because  the  most  habitual. 

It  was  not  only  at  the  entrance  of  a  Door  that  he  exhibited 
his  gigantick  straddles  but  often  in  the  middle  of  a  Room,  as  if 
trying  to  make  the  floor  to  shake ;  and  often  in  the  street,  even 
with  company,  who  would  walk  on  at  a  little  distance  till  he  had 
finished  his  ludicrous  beat,  for  fear  of  being  surrounded  with  a 
mob ;  and  then  he  would  hasten  to  join  them,  with  an  air  of 
great  satisfaction,  seeming  totally  unconscious  of  having  com- 
mited  \sic\  any  impropriety. 

I  remember  to  have  heard  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  relate,  that 
being  with  Dr.  Johnson  at  Dorchester  on  their  way  to  Devonshire, 
they  went  to  see  Corfe  Castle.  I  believe  that  neither  of  them 
was  sufficiently  known  to  Mr.  Banks  to  introduce  themselves  as 
visitors  to  him ;  however  that  might  be,  he  shewed  them  great 
civility,  politely  attending  them  through  the  apartments,  &c.,  in 
the  finest  of  which  Dr.  Johnson  began  to  exhibit  his  Anticks, 
stretching  out  his  legs  alternately  as  far  as  he  could  possibly 
stretch  ;  at  the  same  time  pressing  his  foot  on  the  floor  as  heavily 
as  he  could  possibly  press,  as  if  endeavouring  to  smooth  the  carpet, 
or  rather  perhaps  to  rumple  it,  and  every  now  and  then  collect¬ 
ing  all  his  force,  apparently  to  effect  a  concussion  of  the  floor. 
Mr.  Banks,  regarding  him  for  some  time  with  silent  astonishment, 
at  last  said,  ‘  Dr.  Johnson,  I  believe  the  floor  is  very  firm  which 
immediately  made  him  desist,  probably  without  making  any 
reply 2.  It  would  have  been  difficult  indeed  to  frame  an  apology 
for  such  ridiculous  manoeuvres. 

It  was  amazing,  so  dim-sighted  as  Dr.  Johnson  was,  how  very 
observant  he  was  of  appearances  in  Dress,  in  behaviour,  and 
even  of  the  servants,  how  they  waited  at  table,  &c.  ;  the  more 

a  hop-merchant  of  Southwark,  for  1  Twelfth  Night ,  Act  ii.  Sc.  4, 
£76.  13J.  Gentleman' s  Magazine ,  1.  1 1 7. 

1825,  i.  607.  2  Life ,  i.  145. 

T  2 


particularly 


276 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


particularly ,  so  seeming  as  he  did  to  be  stone-blind  to  his  own  \ 
One  day  as  his  man  Frank  was  waiting  at  Sir  Joshua’s  table, 
he  observed  with  some  emotion  that  he  had  the  salver  under  his 
arm.  Nor  would  the  behaviour  of  the  company  on  some  occa¬ 
sions  escape  his  animadversions ;  particularly  for  their  perversion 
of  the  idea  of  refinement  in  the  use  of  a  water-glass,  a  very 
strange  perversion  indeed  he  thought  it,  as  some  people  use  it. 
He  had  also  a  great  dislike  to  the  use  of  a  pocket-handkerchief 
at  meals,  when,  if  he  wanted  one,  I  have  seen  him  rise  from  his 
Chair,  and  go  at  some  distance  with  his  back  towards  the 
company,  performing  the  operation  as  silently  as  possible. 

Dr.  Johnson’s  sight  was  so  very  defective  that  he  could  scarcely 
distinguish  the  Face  of  his  most  intimate  acquaintance  at  a  half 
yard’s  distance  from  him,  and,  in  general,  it  was  observable  that 
his  critical  remarks  on  dress,  &c.  were  the  result  of  a  very  close 
inspection  of  the  object1  2 ;  partly,  perhaps,  excited  by  curiosity, 
and  partly  from  a  desire  of  exacting  admiration  of  his  perspicacity, 
of  which  it  was  remarkable  he  was  not  a  little  ambitious. 

That  Dr.  Johnson  possessed  the  essential  principles  of  polite¬ 
ness  and  of  good  taste,  which  I  suppose  are  the  same,  at  least 
concomitant,  none  who  knew  his  virtues  and  his  genius  will,  I 
imagine,  be  inclined  to  dispute 3.  But  why  they  remained  with 
him,  like  gold  in  the  ore,  unfashioned  and  unseen,  except  in  his 
literary  capacity,  no  person  that  I  know  of  has  made  any  enquiry, 
tho’  in  general  it  has  been  spoken  of  as  an  unaccountable  incon¬ 
sistency  in  his  character.  But  a  little  reflection  on  the  dis¬ 
qualifying  influence  of  blindness  and  deafness  would  suggest 
many  apologies  for  Dr.  Johnson’s  want  of  politeness.  The 
particular  instance  I  have  just  mentioned,  of  his  inability  to 
discriminate  the  features  of  any  one’s  face,  deserves  perhaps  more 


1  The  words  italicized  have  been 
scored  through. 

2  Ante ,  i.  337. 

3  Politeness  he  one  day  defined  as 
‘  fictitious  benevolence.’  Life,  v.  82. 
See  ante ,  i.  169.  Swift  looked  upon 
good  manners  as  ‘  a  sort  of  artificial 
good  sense.’  The  Tatter ,  No.  20. 
‘Whoever,’  he  said,  ‘makes  the 


fewest  persons  uneasy  is  the  best 
bred  in  the  company.’  Swift’s  Works , 
ed.  1803,  xiv.  182.  ‘  Courts,’  he  said, 
‘  are  the  worst  of  all  schools  to  teach 
good  manners.’  Ib.  p.  189.  ‘A 
Court  is  the  best  school  for  manners.’ 
Chesterfield’s  Letters  to  his  Godson , 
p.  392. 


than 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


277 


than  any  other  to  be  taken  into  consideration,  wanting,  as  he 
did,  the  aid  of  those  intelligent  signs,  or  insinuations,  which  the 
countenance  displays  in  social  converse ;  and  which,  in  their 
slightest  degree,  influence  and  regulate  the  manners  of  the  polite, 
even  of  the  common  observer. 

And  to  his  defective  hearing,  perhaps,  his  unaccommodating 
manners  may  be  equally  ascribed,  which  not  only  precluded  him 
from  the  perception  of  the  expressive  tones  of  the  voice  of  others, 
but  from  hearing  the  boisterous  sound  of  his  own. 

Under  such  disadvantages,  it  was  not  much  to  be  wonder’d  at 
that  Dr.  Johnson  should  have  commited  \sic]  many  blunders  and 
absurdities,  and  excited  surprise  and  resentment  in  company  ; 
one  in  particular  I  remember  to  have  heard  related  of  him  many 
years  since.  Being  in  company  with  Mr.  Garrick  and  some 
others,  who  were  unknown  to  Dr.  Johnson,  he  was  saying  some¬ 
thing  tending  to  the  disparagement  of  the  character  or  of  the 
works  of  a  gentleman  present — I  have  forgot  the  particulars ;  on 
which  Mr.  Garrick  touched  his  foot  under  the  table ;  but  he  still 
went  on,  and  Garrick,  much  alarmed,  touched  him  a  second  time, 
and,  I  believe,  the  third;  at  last  Johnson  exclaimed,  ‘David, 
David,  is  it  you  ?  What  makes  you  tread  on  my  toes  so  ?  * 
This  little  anecdote,  perhaps,  indicates  as  much  the  want  of 
prudence  in  Dr.  Johnson  as  the  want  of  sight.  But  had  he  at 
first  seen  Garrick’s  expressive  countenance  r,  and  (probably)  the 
embarrassment  of  the  rest  of  the  company  on  the  occasion,  it 
doubtless  would  not  have  happen’d. 

Dr.  Johnson  was  very  ambitious  of  excelling  in  common 
acquirements,  as  well  as  the  uncommon,  and  particularly  in  feats 
of  activity 2.  One  day,  as  he  was  walking  in  Gunisbury  Park  (or 
Paddock) 3  with  some  gentlemen  and  ladies,  who  were  admiring 
the  extraordinary  size  of  some  of  the  trees,  one  of  the  gentlemen 
said  that,  when  he  was  a  boy,  he  made  nothing  of  climbing 


*  See  ante,  i.  457,  where  Murphy 
writes  of  Johnson’s  slighting  Gar¬ 
rick  : — ‘  The  fact  was,  Johnson  could 
not  see  the  passions  as  they  rose  and 
chased  one  another  in  the  varied 
features  of  that  expressive  face.’ 


2  See  a?ite,  i.  224,  for  his  swimming  ; 
Life ,  i.  477,  n.  1,  for  his  rolling  down 
a  hill ;  and  ii.  299,  for  his  courage 
and  strength. 

3  Perhaps  the  grounds  of  Gunners- 
bury  House. 

(swarming 


278 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


(swarming  x,  I  think,  was  the  phrase)  the  largest  there.  f  Why, 
I  can  swarm  it  now,’  replied  Dr.  Johnson,  which  excited  a  hearty 
laugh — (he  was  then,  I  believe,  between  fifty  and  sixty) ;  on 
which  he  ran  to  the  tree,  clung  round  the  trunk,  and  ascended  to 
the  branches,  and,  I  believe,  would  have  gone  in  amongst  them, 
had  he  not  been  very  earnestly  entreated  to  descend  ;  and  down 
he  came  with  a  triumphant  air,  seeming  to  make  nothing  of  it. 

At  another  time,  at  a  gentleman’s  seat  in  Devonshire,  as  he 
and  some  company  were  sitting  in  a  saloon,  before  which  was 
a  spacious  lawn,  it  was  remarked  as  a  very  proper  place  for 
running  a  Race.  A  young  lady  present  boasted  that  she  could 
outrun  any  person;  on  which  Dr.  Johnson  rose  up  and  said, 
‘  Madam,  you  cannot  outrun  me  ;  ’  and,  going  out  on  the  Lawn, 
they  started.  The  lady  at  first  had  the  advantage  ;  but  Dr.  John¬ 
son  happening  to  have  slippers  on  much  too  small  for  his  feet, 
kick’d  them  off  up  into  the  air,  and  ran  a  great  length  without 
them,  leaving  the  lady  far  behind  him,  and,  having  won  the 
victory,  he  returned,  leading  Her  by  the  hand,  with  looks  of 
high  exultation  and  delight1  2. 

It  was  at  this  place  where  the  lady  of  the  House  before  a  large 
company  at  Dinner  address’d  herself  to  him  with  a  very  audible 
voice,  ‘  Pray,  Dr.  Johnson,  what  made  you  say  in  your  Dictionary 
that  the  Pastern  of  a  Horse  was  the  knee  of  an  \sic]  Horse3?  ’ 
‘  Ignorance,  madam,  ignorance,’  answered  Johnson.  And  I  was 
told  that  at  another  time  at  the  same  table,  when  the  lady  was 
pressing  him  to  eat  something4,  he  rose  up  with  his  knife  in  his 
hand,  and  loudly  exclaim’d,  ‘  I  vow  to  God  I  cannot  eat  a  bit 
more,’  to  the  great  terror,  it  was  said,  of  all  the  company.  I  did 
not  doubt  of  the  gentleman’s  veracity  who  related  this.  But 
I  was  rather  surprised  at  this  expression  from  Johnson  ;  for  never 


1  Swarming,  in  this  sense,  is  not 
in  Johnson’s  Dictionary.  Miss  Rey¬ 
nolds  in  one  of  her  manuscripts  writes 
warming. 

2  From  Paris  he  wrote  : — ‘  I  ran 
a  race  in  the  rain  this  day,  and  beat 
Baretti.’  Life,  ii.  386.  See  Letters , 
ii.  363,  n.  1,  for  his  race  with  his  friend 
Payne. 

3  Ante ,  i.  182  n. ;  Life ,  i.  293,  378. 


This  blunder  is  the  stranger  as  in 
Bailey’s  Dictionary ,  which  he  had 
before  him  when  writing  his  own, 
pastern  is  correctly  defined. 

4  Boswell  records  in  his  Tour\ — 
‘  I  must  take  some  merit  from  my 
contriving  that  he  shall  not  be  asked 
twice  to  eat  or  drink  anything  (which 
always  disgusts  him).’  Life ,  v.  264. 
See  ante ,  ii.  184  n. 


did 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


279 


did  I  know  any  person  so  cautious  in  mentioning  that  awful 
name  on  common  occasions,  and  I  have  often  heard  him  rebuke 
those  who  have  unawares  interjuctionaly  [sic]  made  use  of  it  \ 

It  was  about  this  time  when  a  lady  was  traveling  [sic]  with 
him  in  a  post-chaise  near  a  village  Churchyard  2,  in  which  she 
had  seen  a  very  stricking  [sic]  object  of  maternal  affection,  a  little 
verdent  [sic]  flowery  monument,  raised  by  the  Widow’d  Mother 
over  the  grave  of  her  only  child,  and  had  heard  some  melancholy 
circumstances  concerning  them,  and  as  she  was  relating  them  to 
Dr.  Johnson,  she  heard  him  make  heavy  sighs,  indeed  sobs,  and 
turning  round  she  saw  his  Dear  Face  bathed  in  tears,  an  incident 
which  induced  the  Lady  to  describe  them  in  a  little  poem  intitled 
[sic]  A  melancholy 3  Tale,  founded  upon  true  circumstances4. 


1  Ante,  ii.  18  n.,  45  n , 

2  Wear  in  Deavonshire  {sic),  near 
Torrington.  Miss  Reynolds. 

Johnson  went  to  Devonshire  in 
1762,  and  spent  two  days  at  Torring¬ 
ton,  with  Reynolds’s  brothers-in- 
law,  Palmer  and  Johnson.  Miss 
Reynolds,  who  saw  him  there,  was 
no  doubt  the  lady.  Taylor’s  Rey¬ 
nolds,  ii.  215,  217  ;  Life,  i.  377. 
‘Mr.  Palmer’s  house  is  in  its  arrange¬ 
ments  little  altered  since  Dr.  John¬ 
son  dined  in  it  in  1762.’  Murray’s 
Handbook  to  Devon,  ed.  1872,  p.  260. 

3  Melancholy  is  scored  through  in 
the  original. 

4  In  one  of  her  manuscripts,  after 
‘bathed  in  tears,’  Miss  Reynolds 
added  : — ‘  A  circumstance  he  had 
probably  long  forgotten,  when  he 
wrote  at  the  end  of  the  manuscript 
Poem  with  his  correcting  pen  in  red 
ink,  I  know  not  when  I  have  been  so 


much  affected.  Dr.  Johnson  honour’d 
two  more  poems  by  the  same  Author 
with  his  corrections  and  inserted 
them  in  Mrs.  Williams’s  collection  of 
poems,  without  knowing  who  was 
the  Author  till  many  years  after.  In 
the  same  Book  is  a  most  beautiful 
little  composition  of  his  own,  a  Fairy 
tale,  which  I  think  shews  the  most 
amiable  view  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  mind 
of  any  of  his  works.’  See  Life ,  ii.  26. 

He  wrote  to  her  on  June  16, 
1780  : — ‘  Do  not,  my  love,  burn  your 
papers.  I  have  mended  little  but 
some  bad  rhymes.  I  thought  them 
very  pretty,  and  was  much  moved  in 
reading  them.’  Letters,  ii.  180. 

In  Lady  Colomb’s  collection  is  a 
copy  of  her  verses  mended  by  John¬ 
son.  The  following  extract  shows  the 
badness  of  her  rhymes  and  the  nature 
of  his  corrections.  These  last,  in 
italics,  were  written  above  the  original. 


‘  As  late  disconsolate  in  pensive  mood 
I  sat  revolving  life’s  vicissitude 
Oft  sigh’d  to  think  how  youth  had  pass’d  away, 
And  saw  with  sorrow  Hope’s  diminish’d  ray, 
View'd  the  dark  scene  with  melancholy  gaze 
In  prospect  view  the  dismal  scene  to  come 
Should  Fate  to  helpless  age  prolong  viy  Days 
Of  gloomy  age  should  Fate  my  Days  prolong, 


Tho’ 


280 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Tho’  it  cannot  be  said  that  Dr.  Johnson  was  c  in  manners 
gentle,’  yet  it  justly  can,  that  he  was  ‘  in  affections  mild  V  bene¬ 
volent  and  Compassionate,  and  to  this  singularity  of  character, 
inverting  the  common  forms  of  civilized  society,  may  I  believe 
be  ascribed  in  a  great  measure  his  extraordinary  celebrity, 
sublimated,  as  one  may  say,  with  terror  and  with  love. 

But  indeed  it  is  worthy  of  consideration  whether  these,  or  any 
of  Dr.  Johnson’s  singularities,  would  have  excited  such  admira¬ 
tion,  had  they  not  been  associated  with  the  idea  of  his  moral 
and  religious  character  ;  hence,  most  undoubtedly,  that  universal 
homage  of  respect  and  veneration  that  has  been  paid  to  his 
memory. 

Much  may  be  said  in  excuse  for  Dr.  Johnson’s  asperity  of 
manners  at  times,  being,  I  believe,  the  natural  effects  of  those 
inherent  melancholy  infirmities,  both  mental  and  corporeal,  to 
which  he  was  subject.  Very  rarely  I  believe — perhaps  never — 
was  he  intentionally  asperous,  unless  provoked  by  something 
said  or  done  that  seem’d  detrimental  to  the  cause  of  religion  or 
morality,  even  in  the  slightest  degree2.  Tho’  indeed  it  must  be 
confessed  that  in  his  zealous  ardour  to  defend  the  former  he  too 
often  trespassed  on  the  borders  of  the  latter. 


in  the  middle  way 

Yet  whilst  I  linger  on  the  doubtful  steep 
Where  Life's  high  vigour  verges  to  decay 
Where  youth  declining  seems  with  age  to  meet 
Sure  Nature  acts ,  L  cry'd,  by  wond’rous  Laws 
Nature  to  her  own  Laws  appears  averse, 

She  yet  all  hope  withdraws 

Still  prompts  resistance  where  there’s  no  redress  ; 

•  •  •  •  • 

7 'he  springing  grass,  the  circulating  air. 

Chears  every  sense  the  common  air  I  breathe 

to  praise  and  prayer. 

Each  common  bounty  prompts  to  prayer  and  praise.’ 

Johnson  seems  to  have  soon  grown  are  not  much  less  than  those  in  the 
weary  of  correcting;  at  all  events  whole  poem  of  about  170  lines, 
the  corrections  in  the  first  few  lines 

1  ‘  Of  manners  gentle,  of  affections  mild, 

In  wit  a  man  ;  simplicity  a  child. 

Pope,  Epitaph  on  Gay. 

2  ‘  Obscenity  and  impiety  (said  in  my  company.’  Life ,  iv.  295.  See 
Johnson)  have  always  been  repressed  ante,  ii.  224. 


But 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


281 


But  what  I  believe  chiefly  conduced  to  fix  that  general  stigma 
on  his  character  for  ill-breeding  was  his  naturally  loud  and  im¬ 
perious  tone  of  voice  *,  which  apparently  heightened  his  slightest 
dissenting  opinion  to  a  degree  of  harsh  reproof,  and,  with  his 
corresponding  Aspect,  had  in  general  an  intimidating  influence 
on  those  who  were  not  much  acquainted  with  him,  and  often 
excited  a  degree  of  resentment,  which  his  words  in  their  common 
acceptation  had  no  tendency  to  provoke.  I  have  often  on  those 
occasions  heard  him  express  great  surprise  that  what  he  had 
said  could  have  given  any  offence1  2,  but  rarely,  I  believe,  any 
sorrow 3,  being  conscious  of  the  rectitude  of  his  intentions,  which 
to  preserve  seem’d  his  chief  concern,  the  chief  object  of  his 
meditations,  in  which  not  unfrequently  he  seem’d  absorbed  even 
when  in  company. 

It  was  doubtless  very  natural  for  so  good  a  man  to  keep 
a  strict  watch  over  his  mind4;  but  so  very  strict  as  Dr.  Johnson 
apparently  did  may  perhaps  in  some  measure  be  attributed  to 
his  dread  of  its  hereditary  tendencies,  which,  I  had  reason  to 
believe,  he  was  very  apprehensive  bordered  upon  insanity 5. 
Probably  his  studious  attention  to  repel  their  prevalency,  together 
with  his  experience  of  divine  assistance,  co-operating  with  his 
reasoning  faculties,  may  have  proved  in  the  highest  degree 
conducive  to  the  exaltation  of  his  piety,  the  pre-eminency  of  his 
wisdom ;  and  I  think  it  is  probable  that  all  his  natural  defects 
which  so  peculiarly  debard  [. sic]  him  from  unprofitable  amuse¬ 
ments  were  also  conducive  to  the  same  end 6. 


1  Ante ,  i.  451. 

2  ‘  After  musing  for  some  time,  he 
said,  “  I  wonder  how  I  should  have 
any  enemies  ;  for  I  do  harm  to  no¬ 
body.”  ’  Life ,  iv.  168. 

When  he  was  ill  of  the  palsy,  he 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘  I  have  in 
this  still  scene  of  life  great  comfort 

in  reflecting  that  I  have  given  very 
few  reason  to  hate  me.  I  hope 

scarcely  any  man  has  known  me 
closely  but  for  his  benefit,  or  cursorily 
but  to  his  innocent  entertainment.’ 
Letters ,  ii.  314.  See  also  Life,  iv. 

280,  where  he  says  that  he  knows 


‘  no  such  weak-nerved  people  ’  as  to 
be  hurt  by  being  contradicted  roughly 
and  harshly  ;  and  iv.  295. 

3  For  his  readiness  to  seek  a  re¬ 
conciliation,  see  ante ,  ii.  223. 

4  See  ante,  ii.  225,  where  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  also  mentions  ‘  the  strict 
watch  Johnson  kept  over  himself.’ 

5  Ante ,  i.  409. 

6  In  another  version  of  the  Recol¬ 
lections  Miss  Reynolds  writes: — 
‘  Being  so  peculiarly  debarred  from 
the  enjoyment  of  those  amusements 
which  the  eye  and  the  ear  afford, 
doubtless  he  sought  more  assiduously 

That 


282 


Recollections  of  Dr .  Johnson 


That  Dr.  Johnson’s  mind  was  preserved  from  insanity  by 
his  Devotional  aspirations  may  surely  be  reasonably  supposed. 
No  man  could  have  a  firmer  reliance  on  the  efficacy  of  Prayer, 
and  he  would  often  with  a  solemn  earnestness  beg  of  his  intimate 
friends  to  pray  for  him,  and  apparently  on  very  slight  occasions 
of  corporeal  indisposition. 

But  that  he  should  have  desired  one  prayer  from  Dr.  Dodd, 
who  was  such  an  atrocious  offender,  has  I  know  been  very  much 
condemn’d,  as  highly  injurious  to  his  character,  not  considering 
perhaps  that  Dr.  Johnson  might  have  had  sufficient  reason  to 
believe  Dodd  to  be  a  sincere  Penitent,  which  indeed  was  the 


case 1 ;  besides  his  mind  was  so 

for  those  gratifications  which  scientific 
pursuits  or  philosophic  meditation  be¬ 
stow.’  Somewhat  the  same  thought 
is  expressed  by  Baron  Grimm : — 

‘  Je  ne  saurais  m’empecher  d’avancer, 
en  passant,  un  paradoxe  qui  merite 
cependant  d’etre  approfondi ;  c’est 
que  dans  l’etat  oil  sont  les  choses,  et 
l’esprit  de,societe  etouffant  continu- 
ellement  en  nous  le  genie,  rien  n’est 
si  favorable  k  sa  conservation  que  des 
sens  peu  parfaits.  Ainsi,  la  vue  ex- 
tremement  fyasse  vous  empechera  de 
remarquer  mille  petites  manures, 
mille  minuties,  et  vous  ne  pourrez 
jamais  avoir  envie  de  les  imitej,  parce 
que  vous  ne  les  aurez  jamais  apergues. 
Ainsi,  votre  oreille  peu  fine  vous  em¬ 
pechera  de  distinguer  la  difference 
des  tons,  et  vous  serez  garanti  de  la 
manie  de  vous  y  exercer,  parce  que 
vous  ne  les  aurez  pas  sentis.  C’est 
ainsi  que  votre  genie  concentre  en  lui- 
meme  au  milieu  de  la  societe  con- 
servera  sa  force  et  sa  surety,  et  sera 
k  l’abri  des  dangers  qui  l’entourent.’ 
Corresftondance  de  Grimm ,  ed.  1814, 
i.  187. 

1  ‘  Atrocious  ’  is  an  absurd  term  to 
apply  to  Dodd.  Johnson  in  his  last 
letter  to  him  said  : — ‘  Be  comforted  ; 
your  crime,  morally  or  religiously 
considered,  has  no  very  deep  dye  of 


soften’d  with  pitty  [sic]  and 

turpitude.  It  corrupted  no  man’s 
principles  ;  it  attacked  no  man’s  life. 
It  involved  only  a  temporary  and 
reparable  injury.  ...  In  requital  of 
those  well-intended  offices  which  you 
are  pleased  so  emphatically  to  ac¬ 
knowledge,  let  me  beg  that  you  make 
in  your  devotions  one  petition  for  my 
eternal  welfare.’  Life ,  iii.  147. 

Wesley,  who  visited  Dodd  in  prison 
two  days  before  his  execution,  said  : — • 
‘  Such  a  prisoner  I  scarce  ever  saw 
before;  much  less  such  a  condemned 
malefactor.  I  should  think  none 
could  converse  with  him  without  ac¬ 
knowledging  that  God  is  with  him.’ 
Wesley’s  Journal ,  ed.  1827,  i.  378. 

Dodd  had  forged  the  signature  of 
his  late  pupil,  the  fifth  Earl  of  Chester¬ 
field,  to  a  bond  for  ,£4,200,  ‘  flattering 
himself  with  hopes  that  he  might  be 
able  to  repay  its  amount  without 
being  detected.’  Life ,  iii.  140. 

Five  years  earlier  he  had  published 
a  sermon  ‘  intended  to  have  been 
preached  in  the  Chapel-Royal  at 
St.  James’s,’  on  ‘the  Frequency  of 
Capital  Punishments  inconsistent 
with  Justice,  sound  Policy  and  Re¬ 
ligion.’  Gentleman's  Magazine ,  1772, 
p.  182. 

In  the  Index  to  the  first  56  volumes 
of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  under 

compassion 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


283 


compassion  for  him,  so  impress’d  with  the  awful  idea  of  his 
situation,  the  last  evening  of  his  life,  he  probably  did  not 
think  of  his  former  transgressions,  or  thought,  perhaps,  that 
he  ought  not  to  remember  them,  when  the  offender  was  so 
soon  to  appear  before  the  Supreme  Judge  of  Heaven  and 
Earth. 

Dr.  Johnson  gave  me  a  copy  of  this  letter,  I  believe  the  Day 
after  Dodd’s  execution,  and  also  of  that  which  he  wrote  to 
Mr.  Jenkinson  (now  the  Earl  of  Liverpool)  in  Dodd’s  behalf, 
which,  tho’  they  have  already  appear’d  in  Print,  I  am  tempted 
to  insert  them,  as  they  seem  to  have  a  slight  connexion  with 
some  particulars  which  Dr.  Johnson  related  to  me  at  the  same 
time,  concerning  Dodd’s  behaviour,  which  I  believe  are  not 
much  known.  [For  the  letter  to  Jenkinson  see  Life ,  iii.  145, 
and  to  Dodd,  id.  iii.  147.] 

Dr.  Johnson  wrote  his  speech  at  his  Tryal  [sic],  at  least  the 
best  part  of  it,  and  also  that  which  he  spoke  at  the  Place  of 
execution1,  with  the  alteration  but  of  one  word.  It  was 
originally,  ‘  My  life  has  been;  most  dreadfully  Hypocritical ,’ 
which  Dodd  objected  to,  and  alter’d  it  for  dreadfully  erronious 2 
[sic]. 

Dr.  Johnson  told  me  that  on  Dodd's  reading  the  letter  he 
sent  to  him  the  evening  before  his  execution,  he  gave  it  into 
the  hands  of  his  wife,  with  a  strong  injunction  never  to  part 


Executions  is  entered,  ‘  See  Domestic 
Occurrences  at  the  end  of  the  Month l 
Wraxall  met  Dodd  at  a  dinner  at 
the  Messrs.  Dilly  in  Nov.  1776.  He 
describes  him  as  ‘  a  plausible,  agree¬ 
able  man,  lively,  entertaining,  well- 
informed  and  communicative  in  con¬ 
versation.  ...  The  King  felt  the 
strongest  impulse  to  save  him. . . .  To 
the  firmness  of  the  Lord  Chief  Justice 
(Mansfield)  his  execution  was  due, 
for  no  sooner  had  he  pronounced  his 
decided  opinion  that  no  mercy  ought 
to  be  extended,  than  the  King,  taking 
up  the  pen,  signed  the  death  warrant. 
.  .  .  During  a  pelting  shower  of  rain 
he  was  turned  off  at  Tyburn.  .  .  . 


Lord  Chesterfield  never  altogether 
surmounted  the  unfavourable  im¬ 
pression  produced  by  the  prominent 
share  which  he  took  in  Dodd’s  prose¬ 
cution.’  Wheatley’s  WraxalVs  Me¬ 
moirs,  iv.  248. 

1  Dodd  did  not  utter  this  speech, 
but  left  it  with  the  sheriff.  Life,  iii. 
143- 

' 8  Dodd  objecting  to  hypocritical 
said : — ‘  With  this  he  could  not  charge 
himself.’  Ib.  He  kept  up  his  self- 
deception  to  the  end.  As  Johnson 
said  of  him  : — ‘  A  man  who  has  been 
canting  all  his  life  may  cant  to  the 
last.’  Ib.  iii.  270. 


with 


284 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


with  it ;  that  he  had  slept  during  the  Night,  and  when  he  awoke 
in  the  morning,  he  did  not  immediately  recollect  what  he  was 
to  suffer,  and  the  moment  that  he  did,  he  express’d  the  utmost 
horror  and  agony  of  mind — outrageously  vehement  in  his  speech 
and  in  his  looks — till  he  went  into  the  Chapel,  and  on  his 
coming  out  of  it  his  face  express’d  the  most  angelic  peace  and 
composure. 

Dr.  Johnson  also  told  me  that  Dodd  probably  entertain’d 
some  hopes  of  life  even  to  the  last  moment1,  having  been  flatter’d 
by  some  of  his  medical  friends  that  there  was  a  chance  of 
suspending  its  total  extinction  till  he  was  cut  down,  by  placing 
the  knot  of  the  rope  in  a  particular  manner  behind  his  ear. 
That  then  he  was  to  be  carried  to  a  convenient  Place,  where 
they  would  use  their  utmost  endeavours  to  recover  him.  All  this 
was  done.  The  hangman  observed  their  injunctions  in  fixing 
the  rope,  and  as  the  cart  drew  off,  said  in  Dodd’s  ear,  you 
must  not  move  an  inch2!  But  he  struggled. — Being  carried 
to  the  place  appointed,  his  friends  endeavoured  to  restore 
him  by  bathing  his  Breast  with  warm  water,  which  Dr.  John¬ 
son  said  was  not  so  likely  to  have  that  effect  as  cold  water. 
That  a  man  wander’d  round  the  Prison  some  Days  before  his 
execution,  with  bank  notes  in  his  Pocket  to  the  amount  of 
a  thousand  pounds,  to  bribe  the  jailor  to  let  him  escape. 

I  have  been  induced  to  mention  all  these  particulars  from 
a  supposition  (as  I  observed  before)  that  they  are  but  little 
known,  having  never  heard  any  person  speak  of  them  (excepting 
that  of  the  Bank  notes)  besides  Dr.  Johnson,  who  had  his 
intelligence  from  the  best  authority,  immediately  after  the 


1  ‘  Dr.  Johnson  told  us  that  Dodd’s 
city  friends  stood  by  him  so,  that 
a  thousand  pounds  were  ready  to  be 
given  to  the  gaoler  if  he  would  let 
him  escape.’  Life ,  iii.  166.  See  ib. 
n.  3  for  the  convict  who  1  could  not 
find  that  any  one  who  had  two 
hundred  pounds  was  ever  hanged.’ 

2  In  the  Gentleman' s  Magazine  for 
17 36,  p.  549,  it  is  reported  that  two 
house-breakers  hanged  at  Bristol, 


‘  when  cut  down  and  put  in  coffins 
came  both  to  life ;  one  though  he 
had  been  blooded  died  about  eleven 
at  night ;  the  other,  continuing  alive, 
was  put  in  Bridewell,  where  great 
numbers  of  people  resorted  to  see 
him.  Having  been  always  defective 
in  his  intellects  he  was  not  to  be 
hanged,  but  to  be  taken  care  of  in 
a  Charity  House.’ 

See  also  ante ,  ii.  143  n. 

execution 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


285 


execution.  He  had  no  personal  acquaintance  with  Dodd.  I 
believe  he  never  was  in  his  company x. 

No  man,  I  believe,  was  ever  more  desirous  of  doing  good 
than  Dr.  Johnson,  whether  propel’d  [sic]  by  Nature  or  by 
Reason ;  by  both  I  should  have  thought,  had  I  not  so  often 
heard  him  say,  That  ‘  Man’s  chief  merit  consists  in  resisting 
the  impulses  of  his  nature.’  Not  what  may  be  call’d  his  second 
Nature,  evil  habits,  &c.,  but  his  Nature  originally  corrupted  from 
the  fall.  ‘Nay,  nay,’  he  would  say  (to  a  person  who  thought 
that  Nature,  Reason,  and  Virtue  were  indivisable  [sic]  in  the 
mind  of  man,  as  inherent  characteristic  principles )  ‘  If  man  is 
by  nature  prompted  to  act  virtuously  and  right,  all  the  divine 
precepts  of  the  Gospel,  all  its  denunciations,  all  the  laws  enacted 
by  man  to  restrain  man  from  evil  had  been  needless1  2.’ 

It  is  certain  that  he  was  rather  apt  to  doubt  the  sincerity 
of  those  who  express’d  much  pity  and  compassion  for  the 
distresses  of  others3.  How  strange  in  Him,  who  ‘had  a  tear 
for  Pity  And  a  Hand,  open  as  Day  for  melting  Charity4.’ 

And  it  has  been  thought  almost  equally  as  strange  that  he 
should  have  had  no  taste  for  music  5  or  for  Painting ;  but  being 
so  precluded  as  he  was  (I  believe  even  from  his  infancy)  from 


1  He  had  been  once.  Life,  iii.  140. 

2  ‘Whatever  (said  Johnson)  is  the 
cause  of  human  corruption,  men  are 
evidently  and  confessedly  so  corrupt, 
that  all  the  laws  of  heaven  and  earth 
are  insufficient  to  restrain  them  from 
crimes.’  Ib.  iv.  123. 

3  ‘Talking  of  our  feeling  for  the 

distresses  of  others:  —  Johnson. 
“  Why,  Sir,  there  is  much  noise 
made  about  it,  but  it  is  greatly  ex¬ 
aggerated.  No,  Sir,  we  have  a  certain 

degree  of  feeling  to  prompt  us  to  do 
good ;  more  than  that  Providence 
does  not  intend.  It  would  be  misery 
to  no  purpose.” . . .  Boswell.  “  I  have 
often  blamed  myself,  Sir,  for  not  feel¬ 
ing  for  others  as  sensibly  as  many  say 
they  do.”  Johnson.  “Sir,  don’t  be 
duped  by  them  any  more.  You  will 
find  these  very  feeling  people  are  not 


very  ready  to  do  you  good.  They 
pay  you  by  feeling .”  ’  Ib.  ii.  94.  See 
also  ib.  ii.  469,  471  ;  ante ,  i.  205,  268. 
4  2  Henry  IV,  Act.  iv.  Sc.  4,  1.  31. 
s  In  one  of  her  manuscripts  Miss 
Reynolds  writes : — ‘  Music  apparently 
had  a  power  to  disgust  him,  par¬ 
ticularly  in  Churches,  which,  I  have 
heard  him  say,  almost  tempted  him 
to  go  out  of  the  Church.  How  very 
strange  in  so  good  a  man,  so  good 
a  poet,  and  so  deep  a  philosopher !  ’ 

‘  Music  (he  said)  excites  in  my 
mind  no  ideas,  and  hinders  me 
from  contemplating  my  own.’  Ante , 
ii.  103.  In  his  seventy-fourth  year, 
he  said,  on  hearing  the  music  of  a 
funeral  procession: — ‘This  is  the 
first  time  that  I  have  ever  been 
affected  by  musical  sounds.’  Life , 
iv.  22. 


his 


286 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


his  defects  of  sight  and  of  hearing,  from  receiving  any  grati¬ 
fication  from  either  the  one  or  the  other,  he  could  have  had 
no  taste  for  them,  no  acquired  Taste,  at  least  for  painting,  his 
sight  being  much  more  defective  than  his  hearing.  A  natural 
good  Taste  he  certainly  possess’d  for  all  the  fine  Arts,  and 
from  an  observation  I  remember  to  have  heard  him  make, 
when  expatiating  in  praise  of  Dr.  Burney’s  history  of  music — 

‘  That  that  work  evidently  proved  that  the  Author  of  it  under¬ 
stood  the  Philosophy  of  music  better  than  any  man  who  had 
ever  written  on  that  subject,’  it  must  be  supposed  that  he  had 
felt  its  power,  and  that  he  had  a  taste  for  music  k 

It  is  curious  to  observe  the  strong  proofs  that  Dr.  Burney 
gives  throughout  his  Book  almost,  of  the  strict  union  of  music 
with  Painting,  in  using  (when  describing  the  excellence  or  the 
defects  of  a  musical  Composition)  precisely  the  same  words 
that  a  Painter  must  use  in  describing  the  excellence  or  the 
defects  of  a  Picture. 

It  is  with  much  regret  that  I  reflect  on  my  stupid  negligence 
to  write  down  some  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  Discourses,  his  observations, 
precepts,  &c.  A  few  short  sentences  only  did  I  ever  take  any 
account  of  in  writing,  and  these  I  lately  found  in  some  old 
memorandum  pocket-Books  of  ancient  date,  about  the  time 
of  the  commencement  of  my  acquaintance  with  him.  Those 
few  indeed,  relating  to  the  character  of  the  French,  were  taken 
viva  voce  the  Day  after  his  arrival  from  France,  Novr.  14,  -75  2> 
intending  them,  I  find,  for  the  subject  of  a  letter  to  a  Friend 
in  the  Country. 

Also  from  the  same  motive  perhaps  I  wrote  down  a  long 
narration  which  Mr.  Baretti  gave  of  some  Paris  inn  adventures 


1  He  heard  the  following  passage 
read  aloud  from  the  preface  to  Dr. 
Burney’s  History  of  Music  while  it 
was  yet  in  manuscript : — ‘  The  love 
of  lengthened  tones  and  modulated 
sounds  seems  a  passion  implanted  in 
human  nature  throughout  the  globe  ; 
as  we  hear  of  no  people,  however 
wild  and  savage  in  other  particulars, 
who  have  not  music  of  some  kind  or 


other,  with  which  they  seem  greatly 
delighted.’  ‘“Sir,”  he  cried,  after 
a  little  pause,  “  this  assertion  I  be¬ 
lieve  may  be  right.”  And  then,  see¬ 
sawing  a  minute  or  two  on  his 
chair,  he  forcibly  added  :  —  “  All 
animated  nature  loves  music — except 
myself !  ”  ’  Dr.  Burney's  Memoirs , 

ii.  77. 

2  Life,  ii.  401. 


&c. 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


287 


&c.  related  probably  the  next  Day,  which  is  verbatim  as  he 
spoke  it  with  an  intermixture  of  French  phrases. 

Talking  on  the  Subject  of  Scepticism. 

JOHNSON.  ‘The  eyes  of  the  mind  are  like  the  eyes  of  the 
Body.  They  can  see  but  at  such  a  distance.  But  because 
we  cannot  see  beyond  this  point,  is  there  nothing  beyond  it  ?  ’ 

On  the  Want  of  Memory. 

‘No,  Sir,  it  is  not  true;  in  general  every  person  has  an  equal 
capacity  for  reminiscence,  and  for  one  thing  as  well  as  another ; 
otherwise  it  would  be  like  a  person’s  complaining  that  he  could 
hold  silver  in  his  hand,  but  could  not  hold  copper  *.* 

A  Gentleman.  ‘  I  think  when  a  person  laughs  when  alone 
he  supposes  himself  for  the  moment  with  company.’ 

JOHNSON.  ‘Yes,  if  it  be  true  that  laughter  is  a  comparison 
of  self-superiority,  you  must  suppose  some  person  with  you2.’ 

‘No,  Sir,’  he  once  said,  ‘  people  are  not  born  with  a  particular 
genius  for  particular  employments  or  studies,  for  it  would  be 
like  saying  that  a  man  could  see  a  great  way  east,  but  could  not 
west 3.  It  is  good  sense  applied  with  diligence  to  what  was 
at  first  a  mere  accident,  and  which,  by  great  application,  grew 
to  be  called,  by  the  generality  of  mankind,  a  particular 
genius  V 

1  ‘  The  true  art  of  memory  is  the 
art  of  attention.’  Idler,  No.  74. 

2  ‘  Mr.  Hobbes  in  his  Discourse  of 
Human  Nature  concludes  thus  : — 

“  The  passion  of  laughter  is  nothing 
else  but  sudden  glory  arising  from 
some  sudden  conception  of  some 
eminency  in  ourselves  by  comparison 
with  the  infirmity  of  others,  or  with 
our  own  formerly ;  for  men  laugh  at 
the  follies  of  themselves  past,  when 
they  come  suddenly  to  remembrance, 
except  they  bring  with  them  any 
present  dishonour.’  The  Spectator, 

No.  47. 

3  ‘Johnson.  “I  could  as  easily 


apply  to  law  as  to  tragick  poetry.” 
Boswell.  “Yet,  Sir,  you  did  apply 
to  tragick  poetry,  not  to  law.”  JOHN¬ 
SON.  “  Because,  Sir,  I  had  not  money 
to  study  law.  Sir,  the  man  who  has 
vigour,  may  walk  to  the  east,  just  as 
well  as  to  the  west,  if  he  happens  to 
turn  his  head  that  way.5”  Life ,  v.  35. 

Mr.  Bryce  in  his  American  Com¬ 
monwealth  (2nd.  ed.  ii.  631)  mis¬ 
quoting  this  passage  says  : — ‘  Dr. 
Johnson  thought  that  if  he  had  taken 
to  politics  he  would  have  been  as 
distinguished  therein  as  he  was  in 
poetry.’ 

4  ‘  The  true  genius  is  a  mind  of 


288 


Recollections  of  Dr .  Johnson 


Some  person  advanced,  that  a  lively  imagination  disqualified 
the  mind  from  fixing  steadily  upon  objects  which  required 
serious  and  minute  investigation.  JOHNSON.  ‘  It  is  true,  Sir, 
a  vivacious  quick  imagination  does  sometimes  give  a  confused 
idea  of  things,  and  which  do  not  fix  deep,  though,  at  the  same 
time,  he  has  a  capacity  to  fix  them  in  his  memory,  if  he  would 
endeavour  at  it.  It  being  like  a  man  that,  when  he  is  running, 
does  not  make  observations  on  what  he  meets  with,  and  con¬ 
sequently  is  not  impressed  by  them ;  but  he  has,  nevertheless, 
the  power  of  stopping  and  informing  himself.’ 


A  gentleman  was  mentioning  it  as  a  remark  of  an  acquaintance 
of  his,  that  he  never  knew  but  one  person  that  was  completely 
wicked1.  JOHNSON.  ‘  Sir,  I  don’t  know  what  you  mean  by 
a  person  completely  wicked.’  GENTLEMAN.  6  Why,  any  one  that 
has  entirely  got  rid  of  all  shame.’  JOHNSON.  ‘  How  is  he,  then, 
completely  wicked?  He  must  get  rid,  too,  of  all  conscience.’ 
Gentleman.  ‘  I  think  conscience  and  shame  the  same  thing.’ 
JOHNSON.  ‘I  am  surprised  to  hear  you  say  so;  they  spring 
from  two  different  sources,  and  are  distinct  perceptions :  one 
respects  this  world,  the  other  the  next 2.’  A  Lady.  ‘  I  think, 
however,  that  a  person  who  has  got  rid  of  shame  is  in  a  fair 
way  to  get  rid  of  conscience.’  JOHNSON.  ‘Yes,  ’tis  a  part  of 


large  general  powers,  accidentally 
determined  to  some  particular  direc¬ 
tion.’  Works, vii.  i.  See  ante,  i.  314  ; 
ii.  264  ;  and  Life,  ii.  436. 

‘  I  know  of  no  such  thing  as  genius,’ 
said  our  Hogarth  to  Gilbert  Cooper 
one  day ;  ‘  genius  is  nothing  but 
labour  and  diligence.’  Seward’s 
Biografhiana ,  p.  293. 

1  ‘  I  once  knew  (said  Johnson)  an 
old  gentleman  who  was  absolutely 
malignant.  He  really  wished  evil  to 
others,  and  rejoiced  at  it.’  Life ,  iii. 
281. 

2  Conscience ,  Johnson  defines  as 
‘  nothing  more  than  a  conviction  felt 
by  ourselves  of  something  to  be 
done,  or  something  to  be  avoided.’ 
Ib.  ii.  243. 


In  his  Dictionary  he  defines  it  as 
‘  the  knowledge  or  faculty  by  which 
we  judge  of  the  goodness  or  wicked¬ 
ness  of  ourselves.’  Shame  he  defines 
as  ‘  the  passion  felt  when  reputation 
is  supposed  to  be  lost.’ 

According  to  Northcote  {Life  of 
Reynolds ,  i.  230)  the  ‘  gentleman  ’ 
was  Reynolds,  and  the  ‘  lady  ’  Miss 
Reynolds.  Sir  Joshua  said  that  ‘he 
thought  it  was  exactly  the  same  ’ — 
being  lost  to  all  sense  of  shame, 
and  being  lost  to  all  sense  of  con¬ 
science.  ‘“What!”  said  Johnson, 
“  can  you  see  no  difference  ?  I  am 
ashamed  to  hear  you  or  anybody 
utter  such  nonsense ;  when  the  one 
relates  to  men  only ;  the  other  to 
God.”  * 


the 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


289 


the  way,  I  grant;  but  there  are  degrees  at  which  men  stop, 
some  for  the  fear  of  men,  some  for  the  fear  of  God :  shame 
arises  from  the  fear  of  men,  conscience  from  the  fear  of  God  V 

JOHNSON.  ‘The  French,  Sir,  are  a  very  silly  People,  they 
have  no  common  life.  Nothing  but  the  two  ends,  Beggary  and 
Nobility  *.* 

4  Sir,  they  are  made  up  in  every  thing  of  two  extremes.  They 
have  no  common  sense,  they  have  no  common  manners,  no 
common  learning,  gross  ignorance  or  les  belles  lettres 1 2  3.’ 

A  Lady.  ‘  Indeed  even  in  their  dress,  their  fripary  [sic']  finery 
and  their  beggarly  coarse  linnen4.  They  had  I  thought  no 
politeness.  Their  civilities  never  indicated  more  good-»will  than 
the  talk  of  a  Parrot,  indiscriminately  using  the  same  set  of  super¬ 
lative  phrases  as  d  la  merveille  !  to  every  one  alike.  They  really 
seem’d  to  have  no  expressions  for  sincerity  and  truth.’ 

JOHNSON.  ‘They  are  much  behind-hand,  stupid,  ignorant 
creatures.  At  Fountainblue  [sic]  I  saw  a  Horse-race5,  every¬ 
thing  was  wrong,  the  heaviest  weight  was  put  upon  the  weakest 
Horse,  and  all  the  jockies  wore  the  same  colour  coat.’ 


1  ‘  It  was  chiefly  respecting  the 
opinion  of  the  Gentleinan  that  this 
dialogue  appear’d  memorable  to  the 
writer.’  Miss  Reynolds. 

2  ‘Johnson  observed,  “The  great 
in  France  live  very  magnificently, 
but  the  rest  very  miserably.  There 
is  no  happy  middle  state  as  in 
England.”  ’  Life ,  ii.  402. 

3  In  another  version  Miss  Reynolds 

writes  ‘  or  la  metaphysique .’  The 
French,  in  this,  were  the  opposite  of 
the  Scotch,  ‘  whose  learning  is  like 
bread  in  a  besieged  town;  every  man 
gets  a  little,  but  no  man  gets  a  full 
meal.’  Life ,  ii.  363.  ‘  There  is, 

perhaps,  (said  Johnson)  more  know¬ 
ledge  circulated  in  the  French  lan¬ 
guage  than  in  any  other.  There  is 
more  original  knowledge  in  English.’ 
Lb.  v.  310.  Matthew  Arnold  describes 
‘the  French  literature  of  the  eight- 

VOL.  II. 


eenth  century’  as  ‘one  of  the  most 
powerful  and  pervasive  intellectual 
agencies  that  have  ever  existed— the 
greatest  European  force  of  the  eight¬ 
eenth  century.’  Essays  in  Criticism , 
ed.  1889,  p.  54. 

4  Mrs.  Carter  wrote  from  Calais 
on  June  4,  1763  : — ‘  In  the  market 
I  saw  such  a  mixture  of  rags  and  dirt 
and  finery  as  was  entirely  new  to  an 
English  spectator.  The  women  at 
the  stalls,  who  looked  as  if  they  were 
by  no  means  possessed  of  anything 
like  a  shift,  were  decorated  with  long 
dangling  earrings.  ...  I  am  sorry  to 
say  it,  but  it  is  fact,  that  the  Lion 
d’ Argent  at  Calais  is  a  much  better 
inn  than  any  I  saw  at  Dover.’  Mrs. 
Carter’s  Memoirs ,  i.  253. 

5  He  does  not  mention  this  in  his 
journal.  Life ,  ii.  394. 


U 


Gentleman. 


290 


Recollections  of  Dr .  Johnson 


GENTLEMAN.  ‘  Had  you  any  acquaintance  in  Paris?  ’ 

‘  No,  I  did  not  stay  long  enough  to  make  any x.  I  spoke  only 
latin,  and  I  could  not  have  much  conversation.  There  is  no 
good  in  letting  the  French  have  a  superiority  over  you  every 
word  you  speak1 2. 

‘  Barreti  [sic]  was  sometimes  displeased  with  us  for  not  liking 
the  French.’ 

Lady.  ‘  Perhaps  he  had  a  kind  of  partiality  for  that  country, 
because  it  was  in  the  way  to  Italy,  and  perhaps  their  manners 
resembled  the  Italians.’ 

Johnson.  ‘No.  He  was  the  showman,  and  we  did  not  like 
his  show  ;  that  was  all  the  reason.’ 


From  Mr.  Barreti  [sic]  3. 

A  lady  observed  that  Dr.  Johnson  had  said  that  Madam  De 
Bo — age  [Du  Bocage]  was  a  poor  creature. 

Barreti.  ‘Yes,  because  he  hated  her  before  he  saw  her,  for 
the  lady  Mrs.  Strickland 4,  who  went  with  us  from  Diepe 5  to 
Paris,  being  introduced  to  Madam  D — e  (by  a  letter  she  carried) 
told  her,  that  le  grand  Johnson,  l’homme  le  plus  savant  de  toute 
l’Angleterre,  was  come  to  Paris,  and  Mr.  Barretti.  “  Oh  Barretti, 
Barretti,  that  I  have  heard  so  much  of,  and  that  I  have  wish’d  so 
much  to  see  ;  bring  me,  bring  me  Baretti,  je  vous  en  prie,” 
Mrs.  S — D.  ‘  Et  le  grand  Johnson  aussi  ?  ’ 

M.  D.  ‘  Je  ne  me  soucie  de  qui  que  ce  soit  d’autre,  pourvu 
que  vous  m’amenez  Barretti.  Je  lis  actuellement  son  livre,  son 
voyage  d’Espagne,  et  je  suis  variment  [sic]  impatiente  d’en  con- 
noitre  1’ Auteur6.  Mais  je  vous  prie  de  faire  mes  compliments  a 


1  ‘  I  was  (he  said)  just  beginning 
to  creep  into  acquaintance.’  Life ,  ii. 
401. 

2  ‘  It  was  a  maxim  with  Johnson 
that  a  man  should  not  let  himself 
down  by  speaking  a  language  which 
he  speaks  imperfectly.’  Ib.  ii.  404. 

3  In  the  next  few  lines  Miss  Rey¬ 
nolds  spells  Baretti’s  name  in  three 
different  ways. 

4  Johnson  described  her  as  ‘a 

Roman  Catholick  lady  in  Cumber¬ 


land,  a  high  lady.’  Life ,  iii.  118. 
He  mentions  her  in  a  letter  to  Mrs. 
Thrale.  Letters ,  i.  401. 

5  Johnson  crossed  from  Dover  to 
Calais,  but  he  visited  Rouen  on  the 
way  to  Paris.  I  suppose  he  went 
along  the  coast  to  Dieppe. 

6  Of  this  book  Johnson  wrote  : — 
‘  I  know  not  whether  the  world  has 
ever  seen  such  Travels  before.’  Let¬ 
ters ,  i.  165. 


tous 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


291 


tous,  et  a  Madame  Thrale  en  particulier.  Je  serai  tres  aise  de 
voir  toute  cette  bonne  compagnie.’ 

‘  Mrs.  S — d  on  her  return  (continued  Barretti)  said  something 
of  Madame  D — ’s  impatience  to  see  me  in  Johnson’s  hearing  ; 
and  finding  her  quite  indifferent  about  him  he  took  such  an 
antipathy  to  her,  that  he  went  with  reluctancy  to  visit  her,  and 
never  could  be  prevailed  upon  to  go  a  second  time  ’ ;  which 
perhaps  was  not  to  be  wondered  at,  for  the  Ladies  and  Barretti 
on  going  one  Day  to  drink  tea  with  her,  she  happen’d  to  produce 
an  old  chaina  [sic]  teapot,  which  Mrs.  S — d,  who  made  the  tea, 
could  not  make  pour.  ‘  Soufflez,  soufflez,  madame,  dedans,’  cry’d 
Madame  D — e,  ‘  il  se  rectifie  immediatement  ;  essayez,  je  vous 
en  prie.’  The  servant  then  thinking  that  Mrs.  S — d  did  not 
understand  what  his  lady  said,  took  up  the  teapot  to  le  rectifier, 
and  Mrs.  S — d  had  quite  a  struggle  with  him  to  get  it  from 
him  ;  he  was  going  to  blow  into  the  spout !  Madame  D — e  all 
this  while  had  not  the  least  idea  of  its  being  any  impropriety, 
and  wonder’d  at  Mrs.  S — d’s  stupidity.  She  came  over  to  the 
table,  caught  up  the  tea-pot,  and  blew  into  the  spout  with  all 
her  might,  then  finding  it  pour,  she  held  it  up  in  tryumph  [sic], 
and  repeatedly  exclaim’d,  ‘  voila,  voila,  j’ai  regagne  l'honneur  de 
ma  Theibre.’  She  had  no  sugar-tongs,  and  said  something  that 
shew’d  she  expected  Mrs.  S — d  to  use  her  fingers,  to  sweeten  the 
cups.  ‘  Madame  je  n’oserois.’  ‘  Oh  mon  Dieu,  quel  grand  quan 
quan  les  Anglois  font  de  peu  de  chose  1 !  ’ 

This  however  could  not  have  prejudiced  Dr.  Johnson  against 
the  lady,  for,  as  I  apprehended  Barretti,  it  happen’d  a  few  days 
before  they  left  Paris  ! 

On  telling  Mr.  Barretti  of  the  proof  that  Johnson  gave  of  the 
stupidity  of  the  French,  in  the  management  of  their  Horse- 


1  Miss  Reynolds  in  one  of  her 
versions  writes: — ‘Madame,  Je  ne 
ose  pas.’  ‘Oh  mon  Dieu,  quell  grand 
ca  les  Anglois  faire  de  peu  de  chose.’ 
In  another  version  her  French  is 
corrected  in  a  different  hand. 

‘Johnson.  “At  Madame - ’s, 

a  literary  lady  of  rank,  the  footman 
took  the  sugar  in  his  fingers  and 

U 


threw  it  into  my  coffee.  I  was  going 
to  put  it  aside ;  but  hearing  it  was 
made  on  purpose  for  me  I  e’en  tasted 
Tom’s  fingers.  The  lady  would  needs 
make  tea  a  V Angloise.  The  spout  of 
the  tea-pot  did  not  pour  freely ;  she 
bad  the  footman  blow  into  it.’  Life , 
ii.  403. 

1  Races, 


292 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Races,  that  all  the  Jockies  wore  the  same  colour  coat  dye  he 
said  ‘  that  was  like  Johnson’s  remarks,  he  could  not  see.’  But  it 
was  observed  that  he  could  enquire.  ‘  Yes,  it  was  by  the  answers 
he  received  that  he  was  misled,’  for  he  ask’d,  *  what  did  the  first 
jockey  wear  ?  ’  answer,  *  Green.’  ‘  What  the  second  ?  *  ‘  Green.’ 

‘  What  the  third  ? 5  ‘  Green  ;  ’  which  was  true  ;  but  then  the 

greens  were  all  different  greens,  and  very  easily  distinguish’d. 
Johnson  was  perpetually  making  mistakes;  so,  on  going  to 
Fountainblue  [. sic]  when  we  were  about  three-fourths  of  the  way, 
he  exclaimed  with  amazement  that  now  we  were  between  Paris 
and  the  King  of  France’s  Court,  and  yet  we  had  not  mett  [sic] 
one  carriage  coming  from  thense  [sic],  or  seen  one  going  thither ! 
on  which  all  the  company  in  the  coach  burst  out  laughing,  and 
immediately  cry’d  out,  look,  look,  there  is  a  coach  gon  [sic]  by, 
there  is  a  chariot,  there  is  a  post-chaise.  I  dare  say  we  saw 
a  hundred  carriages  at  least,  that  were  going  to,  or  coming  from, 
Fountainblue.’ 

It  was  mention’d  with  surprise  to  Mr.  Barretti  that  Dr.  Johnson 
should  not  have  seen  any  Play  but  that  one  he  saw  at  Fountain- 
blue  x.  ‘  Oh  yes,  he  was  at  two  or  three.’  £  Indeed,  he  said  he 
had  not,  and  we  know  that  he  never  tells  an  untruth.’  B.  ‘  Yes, 
I  very  well  remember  that  he  straddled  over  the  Benches  to 
come  near  some  person,  a  la  Comedie  Fran9aise.’ 

Baretti  on  his  return  from  France  seem’d  full  of  animosity 
against  Johnson,  merely,  I  believe,  from  a  false  conceit  of  his 
own  importance. 

[Here  follows  a  narrative  which  has  nothing  to  do  with 
Johnson.] 

I  believe  there  never  subsisted  any  cordial  Friendship  between 
Dr.  Johnson  and  Barretti  after  their  journey  to  Paris2 ;  and  what 
perhaps  intirely  extinguished  it,  was  a  most  mendacious  falsehood 
that  he  told  Johnson  of  his  having  beaten  Omai3  at  Chess,  both 
times  that  he  play’d  with  him  at  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s,  for  the 
very  reverse  was  true  ! 

1  Johnson  recorded  in  his  Journal : —  2  Johnson  wrote  sarcastically  of 

‘At  night  we  went  to  a  comedy.  I  Baretti  a  few  months  before  this 
neither  saw  nor  heard.’  Life ,  ii.  journey.  Letters ,  i.  350. 

394.  3  Life ,  iii.  8. 


‘  Do 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


293 


‘  Do  you  think/  said  he  to  Johnson, 1  that  I  should  be  conquered 
at  Chess  by  a  savage ? *  ‘I  know  you  were/  says  J ohnson. 
Barretti  insisting  upon  the  contrary,  Johnson  rose  from  his  seat 
in  a  most  violent  rage/  ‘  I’ll  hear  no  more.’  On  which  Barretti 
in  a  fright  flew  out  of  his  House,  and  perhaps  never  entered  it 
after.  I  believe  he  was  never  invited.  This  I  was  told  by 
Mrs.  Williams,  who  was  present  at  their  disputation. 

Poor  Mrs.  Williams!  Dr.  Johnson  seemed  much  to  lament 
her  loss  ‘  as  his  companion  for  thirty  years I/  and  often  express’d 
a  very  high  opinion  of  her  mental  accomplishments.  She  was, 
he  said,  *  a  very  great  woman.’  I  rather  expected  he  would  have 
honour’d  her  memory  with  a  few  elegiack  lines,  as  he  did  her 
fellow  Inmate,  Dr.  Levit  [sic]  2,  a  copy  of  which  Dr.  Johnson 
gave  to  me  soon  after  he  wrote  them. 

[Here  followed  Johnson’s  Letter  to  Sir  Joseph  Banks  given 
in  the  Life ,  ii.  144.] 

And  I  have  also  a  desire  to  say  something  about  the  latin 
epitaph  that  Dr.  Johnson  composed  for  Parnel,  because  Mr. 
Boswell  has  said  too  little 3,  no  blame  to  him,  I  imagine,  for 
I  suppose  Dr.  Johnson  did  not  inform  him  that  he  produced  it 
extempory  one  evening  at  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s,  in  compliance 
with  Dr.  Goldsmith’s  request 4.  ‘  Pray,  Sir,  be  so  good  as  to 

write  an  epitaph  for  Dr.  Parnell/  and  almost  immediately  after, 
to  the  surprise  of  all  present,  he  recited  with  solemn  accent : — 


Hie  requiescit  Thomas  Parnel, 

Qui  Sacerdos  pariter  et  Poeta 
Utrasque  partes  ita  implevit, 

Ut  neque  sacerdoti  suavitas  Poetae, 

Nec  poetae  sacerdotis  sanctitas  deesset. 


1  He  wrote  to  Miss  Reynolds  on 
Oct.  1,  1783  : — ‘To  my  other  afflic¬ 
tions  is  added  solitude.  Mrs.Williams, 
a  companion  of  thirty  years,  is  gone/ 
Letters ,  ii.  337. 

2  Life ,  iv.  137. 

3  lb.  iv.  54  ;  v.  404. 

4  Goldsmith  wrote  a  Life  of  Parnell, 
of  which  Johnson  said  : — ‘  It  is  poor  ; 
not  that  it  is  poorly  written,  but  that 
he  had  poor  materials/  lb.  ii.  166. 


Goldsmith  in  this  work,  lamenting 
the  obscurity  of  the  lives  of  men  who 
become  famous  after  death,  finely 
says: — ‘When  a  poet’s  fame  is  in¬ 
creased  by  time,  it  is  then  too  late  to 
investigate  the  peculiarities  of  his 
disposition ;  the  dews  of  the  morn¬ 
ing  are  past,  and  we  vainly  try  to 
continue  the  chace  by  the  meridian 
splendour/  Misc.  Works ,  ed.  1801, 
iv.  3. 


Every 


294 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Every  person  that  understood  latin  seem’d  much  pleased  with 
it.  But  Dr.  Goldsmith,  for  what  reason  I  know  not,  paid  him 
no  compliment,  and  only  said  on  hearing  it,  ‘  Ay,  but  this  is  in 
latin  V  ‘ ’Tis  in  latin,  to  be  sure,’  reply’d  Dr.  Johnson.  I  do 
not  remember  what  follow’d,  but  I  could  not  forget  the  striking 
proof  that  Dr.  Johnson  gave  of  his  abilities  on  this  occasion,  nor 
of  Dr.  Goldsmith’s  unwillingness  to  be  pleased  with  it,  apparently 
confused,  and  not  knowing  what  to  say.  I  did  not  hear  him 
express  any  desire  to  have  the  epitaph  in  english,  either  before 
or  after  Dr.  Johnson  composed  it.  However  he  soon  after 
wrote  one  himself  in  english,  and  it  is,  I  believe,  inscribed  on 
Dr.  Parnel’s  Tomb2. 

That  Mr.  Boswell  has  sullied  his  very  entertaining  and  most 
extraordinary  work  with  his  many  acrimonious  animadversions 
on  the  works,  the  talents,  the  conduct,  &c.  of  the  most  respectable 
characters,  must,  I  imagine,  be  allow’d  by  all  who  have  read  it, 
especially  if  they  have  remark’d  that  the  evidence  which  he 
produces  to  substantiate  his  allegations  rather  prove  their  futility. 

That  many  are  repetitions  of  the  words  of  another  admits  of 
no  extenuation  of  his  fault,  but  on  the  contrary,  I  think,  doubly 
augment  [ sic]  its  turpitude. 

[I  here  omit  an  unimportant  passage.] 

He  has  antidated  [sic]  the  commencement  of  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds’s  acquaintance  with  Dr.  Johnson  by  at  least  five  years3, 
and  has  mistaken  the  place  where  they  first  met,  with  some  other 
immaterial  errors,  respecting  him  and  place,  &c.  The  other  erro¬ 
neous  date  was  March  28  [1776]  which  engaged  my  attention  in 
consequence  of  Mr.  Boswell’s  assertion  that  Mrs.  and  Miss  Thrale 
set  out  for  Bath  in  that  Day,  as  it  reminded  me  of  a  letter  from 
Doctor  Johnson  that  mention’d  that  incident;  it  is  dated  April 


1  For  Johnson’s  contempt  of  English 
epitaphs  for  learned  men,  see  Life, 

iii.  84 ;  v.  154,  366. 

2  ‘  Parnell  was  buried  in  Trinity 
Church  in  Chester,  without  any 
monument  to  mark  the  place  of  his 
interment.’  Goldsmith’s  Misc.  Works , 

iv.  3.  Mr.  Forster,  in  his  Life  of 


Goldsmith ,  makes  no  mention  of  this 
epitaph. 

3  Boswell  places  it  in  1752.  Life , 

i.  245,  n.  1.  Reynolds  wrote,  ante , 

ii.  219,  that  he  had  had  1  thirty  years’ 
intimacy  with  Johnson,’  which  places 
it  not  later  than  1754. 


J3 


by  Miss  Reynolds. 


295 


1 3,  -76,  in  which  he  says  we  are  going  to  Bath  this  morning. 
Such  mistakes  indeed  are  of  little,  or  no  importance  1 ;  but  it  is 
owing  to  a  contrary  supposition  that  I  mention  the  following. 
I  read  the  passage  in  Mr.  Boswell’s  book  relating  to  the  dial 
plate  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  watch  with  much  surprise,  and  indeed 
concern.  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  the  inscription  on  it  was 
in  Greek,  having  heard  from  Dr.  Johnson’s  own  mouth  that  it 
was  in  Latin.  I  will  not  say  that  I  read  the  words,  it  was  so 
long  since ;  but  I  believe  I  did,  having  his  watch  in  my  hand, 
when  he  repeated  them  to  me,  which  he  was  shewing  me  in 
consequence  of  its  being  a  new  and  valuable  acquisition  from 
Mr.  Mudge  2.  They  were,  Nox  enim  veniet>  and  I  was  indeed 
concerned,  for  the  honour  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  character,  which  I 
thought  not  a  little  degraded  by  Mr.  Boswell’s  assertion,  that  he 
had  the  plate  taken  out  for  fear  it  should  be  deemed  ostentatious 3. 
How  Mr.  Boswell  could  have  supposed  it  to  be  consistent  with 
Dr.  Johnson’s  principles  to  have  divested  himself  of  a  holy 
memento  from  the  fear  of  what  any  man  might  think  is  very 
strange.  Nor  can  I  indeed  conceive  how  it  could  be  consistent 
with  any  man’s  principles,  who  at  first  had  chosen  such  an  in¬ 
scription,  to  have  been  at  all  solicitous  to  discard  it,  as  no  one 
could  inspect  it  without  the  concurrence  of  the  owner,  and  less 
frequently  did  Dr.  Johnson  afford  any  person  an  opportunity  of 
inspecting  even  the  outside  case  of  his  watch  than  perhaps  most 
men,  being  remarkably  remiss  in  noticing  the  hour,  even  the 


1  The  mistake  is  Miss  Reynolds’s, 
and  shows  the  carelessness  with 
which  she  read  Boswell,  who  states 
that  on  March  28  Mrs.  and  Miss 
Thrale  and  Baretti  went  to  Bath, 
and  that  Johnson  soon  after  April  12 
went  there  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thrale. 
Life ,  iii.  6,  44.  Mrs.  Thrale  had  in 
the  interval  returned  to  London,  for 
she  was  at  her  own  house  ornthe  10th. 
Ib.  p.  33. 

2  ‘  An  artist  of  great  reputation,  not 
only  in  England  but  in  foreign 
countries.  The  King  of  Spain  had 
a  watch  of  his  making  set  in  the 

head  of  his  cane.’  Miss  Reynolds. 


Miss  Reynolds  applies  the  word 
artist  to  a  watchmaker.  Her  brother 
she  would  have  called  a  painter. 
For  Thomas  Mudge,  the  watch¬ 
maker,  see  ante,  ii.  117. 

3  Boswell  quotes  Johnson’s  own 
words.  ‘  He  sometime  afterwards 
laid  aside  this  dial-plate  ;  and  when 
I  asked  him  the  reason,  he  said, 
“  It  might  do  very  well  upon  a  clock 
which  a  man  keeps  in  his  closet ; 
but  to  have  it  upon  his  watch  which 
he  carries  about  with  him,  and  which 
is  often  looked  at  by  others,  might 
be  censured  as  ostentatious.”  ’  Life , 
ii.  57.  See  also  ante ,  i.  123  n. 

midnight 


296 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


midnight  hour  !  Besides  its  being  in  Greek  heightened  the  im¬ 
probability  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  being  so  afraid  of  incurring  the 
censure  Mr.  Boswell  mentions  ;  and  I  am  happy  to  be  able  to 
contradict  it ;  for  soon  after  Dr.  Johnson  had  shewn  me  the 
latin  one,  he  told  me  that  he  had  it  taken  out  because  he  found 
that  enim  was  not  in  the  original r,  which  is  only  The  Night 
cometh ,  a  motive  perfectly  consonant  with  his  character.  I  do 
not  remember  to  have  heard  him  say  that  the  substitute  was  in 
the  original  Greek  ;  hence  my  surprise  on  reading  Mr.  Boswell’s 
assertion  that  it  was.  The  identical  watch  to  which  he  alluded 
was  some  years  since  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Steevens,  but  since 
his  Decease  I  have  never  heard  what  was  become  of  it1  2. 

[The  following  Recollections  by  Miss  Reynolds,  which  are 
not  in  the  manuscript  copies  that  I  saw,  are  given  by  Mr.  Croker. 
Croker’s  Boswell ,  8vo.  pp.  832-5.] 

It  will  doubtless  appear  highly  paradoxical  to  the  generality 
of  the  world  to  say,  that  few  men,  in  his  ordinary  disposition  or 
common  frame  of  mind,  could  be  more  inoffensive  than  Dr. 
Johnson;  yet  surely  those  who  knew  his  uniform  benevolence, 
and  its  actuating  principles — steady  virtue,  and  true  holiness — 
will  readily  agree  with  me,  that  peace  and  good-will  towards 
man  were  the  natural  emanations  of  his  heart 3. 


1  ‘Venit  nox  quando  nemo  potest 
operari.’  St.  John  ix.  4. 

2  It  was  the  dial-plate  and  not 
the  watch  which  was  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mr.  Steevens.  Life ,  ii.  57. 
For  the  watch  see  ante ,  ii.  81,  and 
ii.  1 17  «.,  where  it  is  stated  by 
Croker  that  the  watch,  which  on 
Johnson’s  death  came  into  the  pos¬ 
session  of  his  black  servant,  was 
sold  by  him  to  Canon  Pailye.  It  is 
also  asserted  by  R.  Polwhele  that 

B - ,  a  Christ  Church  man,  bought 

it  of  the  same  servant.  Unless  there 
is  some  mistake  in  one  of  these 
accounts,  the  Canon  or  the  Christ 
Church  man,  it  seems,  was  tricked. 
It  would  be  interesting  to  know 


whether  there  are  in  existence  two 
watches  said  to  be  Johnson’s. 

3  ‘J°lmson’s  roughness  was  only 
external,  and  did  not  proceed  from 
the  heart.’  Life ,  ii.  362.  ‘  He  has 

nothing  of  the  bear  but  his  skin,’ 
said  Goldsmith.  Id.  ii.  66.  ‘  How 

very  false  is  the  notion  which  has 
gone  round  the  world  of  the  rough, 
and  passionate,  and  harsh  manners 
of  this  great  and  good  man.  . . .  That 
he  was  occasionally  remarkable  for 
violence  of  temper  may  be  granted ; 
but  let  us  ascertain  the  degree,  and 
not  let  it  be  supposed  that  he  was  in 
a  perpetual  rage,  and  never  without 
a  club  in  his  hand,  to  knock  down 
every  one  who  approached  him.  On 

He 


by  Miss  Reynolds . 


297 


He  always  carried  a  religious  treatise  in  his  pocket  on  a 
Sunday x,  and  he  used  to  encourage  me  to  relate  to  him  the 
particular  parts  of  Scripture  I  did  not  understand,  and  to  write 
them  down  as  they  occurred  to  me  in  reading  the  Bible. 

One  Sunday  morning,  as  I  was  walking  with  him  in  Twicken¬ 
ham  meadows,  he  began  his  antics  both  with  his  feet  and  hands, 
with  the  latter  as  if  he  was  holding  the  reins  of  a  horse  like  a 
jockey  on  full  speed.  But  to  describe  the  strange  positions  of 
his  feet  is  a  difficult  task  ;  sometimes  he  would  make  the  back 
part  of  his  heels  to  touch,  sometimes  his  toes,  as  if  he  was  aiming 
at  making  the  form  of  a  triangle,  at  least  the  two  sides  of  one 2. 
Though  indeed,  whether  these  were  his  gestures  on  this  particular 
occasion  in  Twickenham  meadows  I  do  not  recollect,  it  is  so 
long  since  ;  but  I  well  remember  that  they  were  so  extraordinary 
that  men,  women,  and  children  gathered  round  him,  laughing. 
At  last  we  sat  down  on  some  logs  of  wood  by  the  river  side,  and 
they  nearly  dispersed  ;  when  he  pulled  out  of  his  pocket  Grotius 
De  Veritate  Religionis 3,  over  which  he  seesawed  at  such  a  violent 
rate  as  to  excite  the  curiosity  of  some  people  at  a  distance  to 
come  and  see  what  was  the  matter  with  him. 

As  we  were  returning  from  the  meadows  that  day,  I  remember 
we  met  Sir  John  Hawkins,  whom  Dr.  Johnson  seemed  much 


the  contrary,  the  truth  is,  that  by 
much  the  greatest  part  of  his  time 
he  was  civil,  obliging,  nay,  polite  in 
the  true  sense  of  the  word.’  Life , 
iii.  80.  See  also  ante,  i.  189. 

He  grew  milder  as  he  grew  older. 
Miss  Burney  wrote  in  May : — 
4  Dr.  Johnson  was  charming,  both  in 
spirits  and  humour.  I  really  think 
he  grows  gayer  and  gayer  daily,  and 
more  ductile  and  pleasant.’  Mme. 
D’Arblay’s  Diary ,  ii.  23.  Beattie, 
a  week  or  two  later,  wrote  : — 4  John¬ 
son  grows  in  grace  as  he  grows  in 
years.  He  has  contracted  a  gentle¬ 
ness  of  manner  which  pleases  every 
body.’  Beattie’s  Life ,  1824,  p.  289. 
Hannah  More  wrote  in  1783  : — 4  Dr. 
Johnson  is  more  mild  and  com¬ 


placent  than  he  used  to  be.  I  was 
struck  with  the  mild  radiance  of  this 
setting  sun.’  Ante ,  ii.  201. 

1  Perhaps  he  did  not  always  read 
in  it.  Boswell  records  how  in  the 
Sunday  he  spent  in  Edinburgh : — 
4  He  took  down  Ogden’s  Sermons  on 
Prayer ,  and  retired  with  them  to  his 
room.  He  did  not  stay  long,  but 
soon  joined  us  in  the  drawing-room.’ 
Life ,  v.  29.  The  following  Sunday 
at  Aberdeen, 4  he  borrowed  a  volume 
of  Massillon's  Discourses  on  the 
Psalms :  but  I  found  he  read  little 
in  it.  Ogden  too  he  sometimes  took 
up,  and  glanced  at;  but  threw  it 
down  again.’  Ib.  v.  88. 

2  Ante ,  ii.  274,  n.  1. 

3  Life ,  i.  398,  454 ;  ante ,  i.  157. 

rejoiced 


298 


Recollections  of  Dr.  Johnson 


rejoiced  to  see  ;  and  no  wonder,  for  I  have  often  heard  him  speak 
of  Sir  John  in  terms  expressive  of  great  esteem  and  much 
cordiality  of  friendship1.  On  his  asking  Dr.  Johnson  when  he 
had  seen  Dr.  Hawkesworth,  he  roared  out  with  great  vehemency, 
‘Hawkesworth  is  grown  a  coxcomb,  and  I  have  done  with  him2.’ 

We  drank  tea  that  afternoon  at  Sir  John  Hawkins’s,  and  on 
our  return  I  was  surprised  to  hear  Dr.  J ohnson’s  minute  criticism 
on  Lady  Hawkins’s  dress,  with  every  part  of  which  almost  he 
found  fault 3 *. 

Few  people,  I  have  heard  him  say,  understood  the  art  of 
carving  better  than  himself ;  but  that  it  would  be  highly  inde¬ 
corous  in  him  to  attempt  it  in  company,  being  so  near-sighted, 
that  it  required  a  suspension  of  his  breath  during  the  operation  \ 

It  must  be  owned,  indeed,  that  it  was  to  be  regretted  that  he 
did  not  practise  a  little  of  that  delicacy  in  eating,  for  he  appeared 
to  want  breath  more  at  that  time  than  usual.  It  is  certain  that 
he  did  not  appear  to  the  best  advantage  at  the  hour  of  repast 5 ; 
but  of  this  he  was  perfectly  unconscious,  owing  probably  to  his 
being  totally  ignorant  of  the  characteristic  expressions  of  the 
human  countenance6,  and  therefore  he  could  have  no  conception 
that  his  own  expressed  when  most  pleased  any  thing  displeasing 
to  others ;  for  though,  when  particularly  directing  his  attention 
towards  any  object  to  spy  out  defects  or  perfections,  he  generally 
succeeded  better  than  most  men 7 ;  partly,  perhaps,  from  a  desire 
to  excite  admiration  of  his  perspicacity,  of  which  he  was  not  a 
little  ambitious — yet  I  have  heard  him  say,  and  I  have  often 


1  Ante ,  ii.  81.  Hawkins  lived  at 
Twickenham. 

2  Malone  says  that  ‘  J°linson  was 
fond  of  him,  but  latterly  owned  that 

Hawkesworth — who  had  set  out  a 
modest,  humble  man — was  one  of 
the  many  whom  success  in  the 
world  had  spoiled.  He  was  latterly, 
as  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  told  me,  an 

affected  insincere  man,  and  a  great 

coxcomb  in  his  dress.  He  had  no 
literature  whatever.’  Prior’s  Malone , 

p.  441. 

F.  Greville,  writing  to  Hume  on 


Sept.  24,  1764,  quotes  the  opinion  of 
‘  my  poor  little  inoffensive  friend 
Hawkesworth.’  Hume  MS S.,  Royal 
Society  of  Edinburgh.  For  what  Bos¬ 
well  calls  his  ‘  provoking  effrontery,’ 
see  Life,  i.  253. 

3  Ante,  i.  337. 

4  According  to  Baretti  Miss 
Williams,  though  blind,  often  carved. 
Life ,  ii.  99,  n.  2.  Boswell,  who  dined 
with  Johnson  more  than  once,  does 
not  mention  who  carved. 

5  Ante ,  ii.  105.  6  Ante ,  i.  457. 

7  Life ,  i.  41.  ' 

perceived 


by  Miss  Reynolds . 


299 


perceived,  that  he  could  not  distinguish  any  man’s  face  half  a 
yard  distant  from  him,  not  even  his  most  intimate  acquaintance. 

And  yet  Dr.  Johnson’s  character,  singular  as  it  certainly  was 
from  the  contrast  of  his  mental  endowments  with  the  roughness 
of  his  manners,  was,  I  believe,  perfectly  natural  and  consistent 
throughout ;  and  to  those  who  were  intimately  acquainted  with 
him  must,  I  imagine,  have  appeared  so.  For  being  totally  devoid 
of  all  deceit,  free  from  every  tinge  of  affectation  or  ostentation  zf 
and  unwarped  by  any  vice,  his  singularities,  those  strong  lights 
and  shades  that  so  peculiarly  distinguish  his  character,  may  the 
more  easily  be  traced  to  their  primary  and  natural  causes. 

The  luminous  parts  of  his  character,  his  soft  affections,  and  I 
should  suppose  his  strong  intellectual  powers,  at  least  the  dignified 
charm  or  radiancy  of  them,  must  be  allowed  to  owe  their  origin 
to  his  strict,  his  rigid  principles  of  religion  and  virtue ;  and  the 
shadowy  parts  of  his  character,  his  rough,  unaccommodating 
manners,  were  in  general  to  be  ascribed  to  those  corporeal  defects 
that  I  have  already  observed  naturally  tended  to  darken  his 
perceptions  of  what  may  be  called  propriety  and  impropriety  in 
general  conversation  ;  and  of  course  in  the  ceremonious  or 
artificial  sphere  of  society  gave  his  deportment  so  contrasting  an 
aspect  to  the  apparent  softness  and  general  uniformity  of  culti¬ 
vated  manners. 

And  perhaps  the  joint  influence  of  these  two  primeval  causes, 
his  intellectual  excellence  and  his  corporeal  defects,  mutually 
contributed  to  give  his  manners  a  greater  degree  of  harshness 
than  they  would  have  had  if  only  under  the  influence  of  one  of 
them  ;  the  imperfect  perceptions  of  the  one  not  unfrequently 
producing  misconceptions  in  the  other. 

Besides  these,  many  other  equally  natural  causes  concurred  to 
constitute  the  singularity  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  character.  Doubtless, 


1  ‘  He  had  an  abhorrence  of  affec¬ 
tation.  Talking  of  old  Mr.  Langton, 
of  whom  he  said,  “  Sir,  you  will 
seldom  see  such  a  gentleman,  such 
are  his  stores  of  literature,  such  his 
knowledge  in  divinity,  and  such  his 
exemplary  life  ;  ”  he  added,  “  and 


Sir,  he  has  no  grimace,  no  gesticula¬ 
tion,  no  bursts  of  admiration  on 
trivial  occasions  ;  he  never  embraces 
you  with  an  overacted  cordiality.”  ’ 
Life,  iv.  27.  See  ib.  i.  470  for 
Johnson’s  disapproval  of  4  studied 
behaviour.’ 


the 


3°° 


Recollections  by  Miss  Reynolds. 


the  progress  of  his  education  had  a  double  tendency  to  brighten 
and  to  obscure  it.  But  I  must  observe,  that  this  obscurity 
(implying  only  his  awkward  uncouth  appearance,  his  ignorance 
of  the  rules  of  politeness,  &c.)  would  have  gradually  disappeared 
at  a  more  advanced  period,  at  least  could  have  had  no  manner 
of  influence  to  the  prejudice  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  character,  had  it 
not  been  associated  with  those  corporeal  defects  above  mentioned. 
But,  unhappily,  his  untaught,  uncivilized  manner  seemed  to  render 
every  little  indecorum  or  impropriety  that  he  committed  doubly 
indecorous  and  improper. 


ANECDOTES 


BY  WILLIAM  SEWARD,  F.R.S.* 


Of  music  Dr.  Johnson  used  to  say  that  it  was  the  only  sensual 
pleasure  without  vice1 2.  European  Magazine ,  1795,  p.  82. 

Dr.  Johnson  was  extremely  averse  to  the  present  foppish 
mode  of  educating  children,  so  as  to  make  them  what  foolish 
mothers  call  ‘  elegant  young  men.’  He  said  to  some  lady  who 
asked  him  what  she  should  teach  her  son  in  early  life,  ‘  Madam, 
to  read,  to  write,  to  count ;  grammar,  writing,  and  arithmetic ; 
three  things  which,  if  not  taught  in  very  early  life,  are  seldom 
or  ever  taught  to  any  purpose,  and  without  the  knowledge  of 
which  no  superstructure  of  learning  or  of  knowledge  can  be 
built3.’  Ib.  p.  186. 

The  Doctor  used  to  say  that  he  once  knew  a  man  of  so 
vagabond  a  disposition,  that  he  even  wished,  for  the  sake  of 
change  of  place,  to  go  to  the  West  Indies.  He  set  off  on  this 
expedition,  and  the  Doctor  saw  him  in  town  four  months 


1  These  anecdotes  are  collected 
from  the  European  Magazine , 
Seward’s  Anecdotes  of  Distinguished 
Persons ,  and  his  Biographiana. 

Boswell  owns  his  obligation  to  him 
‘  for  several  communications.’  Life , 
iii.  123.  For  an  account  of  him,  see 
ib.  n.  1  ;  and  Letters ,  i.  346,  n.  1. 

2  Johnson  here  uses  sensual  in  the 

sense  that  he  gives  it  in  his  first  and 


second  definitions,  as  ‘  affecting  the 
senses’  or  ‘pleasing  to  the  senses,’ 
and  not  in  the  more  limited  sense 
which  it  now  bears.  For  his  feelings 
towards  music,  see  ante,  ii.  103. 

3  ‘  I  hate  by-roads  in  education. 
Education  is  as  well  known,  and  has 
long  been  as  well  known  as  ever  it 
can  be.’  Life ,  ii.  407. 

For  arithmetic,  see  ante ,  i.  281,  295. 

afterwards 


302  Anecdotes  by  William  Seward,  F.R.S. 


afterwards.  Upon  asking  him,  why  he  had  not  put  his  plan 
in  execution,  he  replied,  ‘  I  have  been  returned  these  ten  days 
from  the  West  Indies.  The  sight  of  slavery  was  so  horrid  to 
me.  that  I  could  only  stay  two  days  in  one  of  the  islands  V 
This  man,  who  had  been  once  a  man  of  literature,  and  a  private 
tutor  to  some  young  men  of  consequence,  became  so  extremely 
torpid  and  careless  in  point  of  further  information,  that  the 
Doctor,  when  he  called  upon  him  one  day,  and  asked  him  to  lend 
him  a  book,  was  told  by  him,  that  he  had  not  one  in  the  house. 

Dr.  Johnson,  on  learning  the  death  of  a  celebrated  West  India 
Planter1 2,  said,  ‘He  is  gone,  I  believe,  to  a  climate  in  which  he 
will  not  find  the  country  much  warmer  and  the  men  much 
blacker  than  that  he  has  left.’  Ib.  p.  186. 

Johnson  was  much  pleased  with  a  French  expression  made 
use  of  by  a  lady  towards  a  person  whose  head  was  confused 
with  a  multitude  of  knowledge,  at  which  he  had  not  arrived 
in  a  regular  and  principled  way, — II  a  bati  sans  echafaud, — 
‘he  has  built  without  his  scaffold.’ 

He  was  once  told  that  a  friend  of  his,  who  had  long  lived 
in  London,  was  about  to  quit  it,  to  retire  into  the  country,  as 
being  tired  of  London.  ‘Say  rather,  Sir,’  said  Johnson,  ‘that 
he  is  tired  of  life3.’  European  Magazine ,  1797,  p.  418. 

Dr.  Johnson  said  that  he  should  be  much  pleased  to  write 
the  Life  of  that  man  [Bacon],  from  whose  writings  alone  a 
Dictionary  of  the  English  Language  might  be  compiled 4. 


1  Johnson  described  Jamaica  as 
‘  a  place  of  great  wealth  and  dread¬ 
ful  wickedness,  a  den  of  tyrants 
and  a  dungeon  of  slaves.’  HE,  ii. 
478. 

‘  Great  merit,’  wrote  Franklin,  ‘is 
assumed  for  the  gentlemen  of  the 
West-Indies,  on  the  score  of  their 
residing  and  spending  their  money  in 
England.’  Franklin’s  Works,  ed. 
1887,  iii.  105. 

2  Perhaps  Alderman  Beckford. 

Life ,  iii.  76,  201.  See  ante ,  i.  21 1, 

where  he  is  reported  to  have  said  ‘  of 


a  Jamaica  gentleman,  then  lately 
dead  :  “  He  will  not,  whither  he  is 
now  gone,  find  much  difference,  I 
believe,  either  in  the  climate  or  the 
company.”  ’ 

3  ‘  No,  Sir,  when  a  man  is  tired  of 
London,  he  is  tired  of  life ;  for  there 
is  in  London  all  that  life  can  afford.’ 
Life,  iii.  178.  Charles  Lamb,  writing 
to  Wordsworth,  speaks  of  ‘the  im¬ 
possibility  of  being  dull  in  Fleet 
Street.’  Lamb’s  Letters ,  i.  165. 

4  For  my  note  on  this,  see  Life,  iii. 
194,  n.  2.  See  also  ante ,  ii.  229. 


He 


Anecdotes  by  William  Seward \  F.R.S. 


He  was  one  day  in  company  with  a  very  talkative  lady,  of 
whom  he  appeared  to  take  very  little  notice.  ‘  Why,  Doctor, 
I  believe  you  prefer  the  company  of  men  to  that  of  the  ladies.’ 
‘  Madam,’  replied  he,  £  I  am  very  fond  of  the  company  of  ladies  ; 
I  like  their  beauty,  I  like  their  delicacy,  I  like  their  vivacity, 
and  I  like  their  silence l  European  Magazine ,  1798,  p.  92. 

Johnson  the  day  before  he  died  was  visited  by  Dr.  Burney. 
After  having  taken  an  affectionate  leave  of  his  old  friend  he 
said,  taking  his  hands  between  his,  ‘  My  good  friend,  do  all  the 
good  you  can  V 

‘You  are  my  model,  Sir,’  said  he  to  Dr.  Burney,  soon  after 
he  published  his  Tour  to  the  Hebrides .  ‘  I  had  that  clever  dog 

Burney’s  Musical  Tour2  in  my  eye,’  said  he  to  many  friends 
on  the  same  occasion.  Ib .,  p.  241. 


A  friend  of  Johnson,  an  indolent  man,  succeeding  to  a  moderate 
sum  of  money  on  the  death  of  his  father,  asked  the  Doctor 
how  he  should  lay  it  out.  ‘  Half  on  mortgage,’  said  he,  ‘  and 
half  in  the  funds :  you  have  then,’  continued  he,  *  the  two  best 
securities  for  it  that  your  country  can  afford.  Take  care,  how¬ 
ever,  of  the  character  of  the  person  to  whom  you  lend  it  on 
mortgage ;  see  that  he  is  a  man  of  exactness  and  regularity, 
and  lives  within  his  income.  The  money  in  the  funds  you  are 
sure  of  at  every  emergency ;  it  is  always  at  hand,  and  may  be 
resorted  to  on  every  occasion 3.’  Ib.,  p.  302. 


1  For  a  somewhat  different  version 
of  this  anecdote,  see  Life ,  iv.  410, 
n.  I. 

2  The  Present  State  of  Music  in 
France  and  Italy ,  I  vol.  1771,  and 
The  Present  State  of  Music  in 
Germany ,  S^c.,  2  vols.  1773.  Life , 
iv.  186. 

3  Dr.  Johnson  said  :  ‘  It  is  better 
to  have  five  per  cent,  out  of  land  than 
out  of  money,  because  it  is  more  se¬ 
cure  ;  but  the  readiness  of  transfer  and 
promptness  of  interest  make  many 
people  rather  choose  the  funds.’  Life , 
iv.  164.  In  a  note  on  Falstaff’s 
words,  ‘  You  may  buy  land  now  as 


cheap  as  stinking  mackerel,’  Johnson 
writes  : — ‘  In  former  times  the  pros¬ 
perity  of  the  nation  was  known  by 
the  value  of  land,  as  now  by  the  price 
of  stocks.  Before  Henry  the  Seventh 
made  it  safe  to  serve  the  king  regnant, 
it  was  the  practice  at  every  revolution 
for  the  conqueror  to  confiscate  the 
estates  of  those  that  opposed,  and 
perhaps  of  those  who  did  not  assist 
him.  Those,  therefore,  that  foresaw 
a  change  of  Government,  and  thought 
their  estates  in  danger,  were  desirous 
to  sell  them  in  haste  for  something 
that  might  be  carried  away.’  John¬ 
son’s  Shakespeare ,  ed.  1765,  iv.  165. 

Dr. 


304  Anecdotes  by  William  Seward ,  F.R.S. 


Dr.  Johnson  used  to  tell  his  friends  that  from  time  imme¬ 
morial  a  convict  of  the  parish  of  St.  Giles  in  the  Fields  had 
the  privilege  of  the  right  hand  in  the  cart.  Ib .,  p.  303. 

Dr.  Johnson  one  day  observing  a  friend  of  his  packing  up 
the  two  volumes  of  Observations  on  Man ,  written  by  this  great 
and  good  man  (Hartley)  to  take  into  the  country,  said,  *  Sir, 
you  do  right  to  take  Dr.  Hartley  with  you.’  Dr.  Priestley 
said  of  him,  ‘  that  he  had  learned  more  from  Hartley,  than  from 
any  book  he  had  ever  read,  except  the  Bible  V 

Johnson  used  to  say  of  the  Due  de  Rochefoucault  that  he  was 
one  of  the  few  gentlemen  writers  of  whom  authors  by  profession 
had  occasion  to  be  afraid1 2.  European  Magazine ,  1798,  p. 

374- 


Dr.  Johnson  said  that  Busby  used  to  declare  that  his  rod 
was  his  sieve,  and  that  whoever  could  not  pass  through  that 
was  no  boy  for  him  3.  He  early  discovered  the  genius  of  Dr. 
South,  lurking  perhaps  under  idleness  and  obstinacy.  ‘  I  see 


1  Hartley  is  not,  I  think,  men¬ 

tioned  in  any  of  Johnson’s  writings  or 
in  Boswell.  Priestley,  in  his  Auto¬ 
biography. ,  ed.  1810,  p.  12,  says  of 
Hartley’s  Observations  on  Man  : — 
1  It  produced  the  greatest,  and  in  my 
opinion,  the  most  favourable  effect 
on  my  general  turn  of  thinking 
through  life.’ 

If  Johnson  had  heard  Seward  sup¬ 
porting  Hartley’s  fame  by  Priestley’s 
praise,  he  would  have  knit  his  brows, 
and  in  a  stern  manner  enquired, 
44  Why  do  we  hear  so  much  of  Dr. 
Priestley  ?  ”  ’  Life,  iv.  238. 

4  It  is  known  to  most  literary  people 
that  Coleridge  was,  in  early  life,  so 
passionate  an  admirer  of  the  Hart- 
leian  philosophy,  that  “Hartley” 
was  the  sole  baptismal  name  which 
he  gave  to  his  eldest  child ;  and  in 
an  early  poem  entitled  Religious 
Musings  he  has  characterized  Hart¬ 
ley  as 


“  Him  of  mortal  kind 

Wisest,  him  first  who  marked  the 
ideal  tribes 

Up  the  fine  fibres  through  the 
septient  brain 

Pass  in  fine  surges.” 

But  at  present  (August,  1807)  all 
this  was  a  forgotten  thing.  Coleridge 
was  so  profoundly  ashamed  of  the 
shallow  Unitarianism  of  Hartley,  and 
so  disgusted  to  think  that  he  could 
at  any  time  have  countenanced  that 
creed,  that  he  would  scarcely  allow 
to  Hartley  the  reverence  which  is 
undoubtedly  his  due.’  De  Quincey’s 
Works ,  ed.  1863,  ii.  56. 

2  Speaking  of  the  Earl  of  Carlisle’s 
Poems ,  Johnson  said  4  that  when  a 
man  of  rank  appeared  in  that  char¬ 
acter  [as  a  candidate  for  literary 
fame,]  he  deserved  to  have  his  merit 
handsomely  allowed.’  Life ,  iv.  114. 

3  4  As  we  stood  before  Busby’s 
tomb  the  Knight  [Sir  Roger  de  Cover- 

said 


Anecdotes  by  William  Seward '  F.R.S.  305 


(said  he)  great  talents  in  that  sulky  boy,  and  I  shall  endeavour 
to  bring  them  out.’  Seward’s  Anecdotes  of  Distinguished 
Persons ,  ii.  50. 

Dr.  Johnson  always  supposed  that  Mr.  Richardson  had  Mr. 
Nelson1  in  his  thoughts,  when  he  delineated  the  character  of 
Sir  Charles  Grandison.  Ib.  ii.  91. 

A  friend  of  Dr.  Johnson  asked  him  one  day,  whose  sermons 
were  the  best  in  the  English  language.  ‘  Why,  Sir,  bating 
a  little  heresy  those  of  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke2.’  This  great  and 
excellent  man  had  indeed  good  reason  for  thus  highly  praising 
them,  as  he  told  a  relation  of  Dr.  Clarke  they  made  him  a 
Christian 3. 

In  his  opinion  Clarke  was  the  most  complete  literary  char¬ 
acter  that  England  ever  produced.  Ib.  ii.  313. 

The  late  Lord  North  told  Dr.  Johnson4  that  Sir  Robert 
Walpole  had  once  got  possession  of  some  treasonable  letters 
of  Mr.  Shippen,  and  that  he  sent  for  him,  shewed  him  the 
letters,  and  burnt  them  before  his  face.  Soon  afterwards  it 


ley]  uttered  himself  again  after  the 
same  manner,  “  Dr.  Busby,  a  great 
man  !  he  whipped  my  grandfather  ; 
a  very  great  man  !  I  should  have 
gone  to  him  myself,  if  I  had  not  been 
a  blockhead  ;  a  very  great  man  !  ”  ’ 
The  Spectator,  No.  329. 

1  Robert  Nelson,  the  author  of 
Festivals  and  Fasts.  Ante,  i.  221  n. 

2  For  Clarke’s  heresy  see  ante,  i. 
38,  and  for  Queen  Caroline’s  wish 
to  make  him  a  bishop  see  Life ,  iii. 
248  n.  Dean  Church,  writing  of 
Handel’s  Te  Deum,  as  performed  in 
St.  Paul’s  at  the  Queen’s  Jubilee, 
says  : — ‘  I  noticed  one  thing  which 
perhaps  is  an  over-refinement.  The 
least  striking  bit  is  the  rendering  of 
the  verses  concerning  the  Three  Per¬ 
sons — “The  Father — Thine  honour¬ 
able,  true,  and  only  Son — Also  the 
Holy  Ghost,  the  Comforter.”  It  is 
not  dwelt  on,  but  run  through — 

VOL.  II. 


almost  rushed  through,  as  if  it  were 
almost  only  one  verse.  Well,  when 
Handel  wrote  was  just  the  time  when 
Queen  Caroline,  wife  of  George  II, 
was  supposed  to  be  countenancing 
the  people  who  took  the  wrong  side 
in  the  great  Trinitarian  controversy 
then  raging.  It  would  be  curious,  if 
that  influenced  a  composition  which, 
of  course,  would  be  talked  about  in 
the  court  of  the  hero  of  Dettingen, 
1743.’  Life  and  Letters  of  Dean 
Church ,  p.  392. 

3  For  the  effect  of  Law’ s  Serious 
Call  to  a  Holy  Life  on  his  mind,  see 
Life,  i.  68. 

4  ‘  I  had  once  some  business  to  do 
for  government,  and  I  went  to  Lord 
North’s.  Precaution  was  taken  that 
it  should  not  be  known.  It  was  dark 
before  I  went ;  yet  a  few  days  after 
I  was  told,  “  Well,  you  have  been 
with  Lord  North.’”  Ib.  v.  248. 


X 


was 


306  Anecdotes  by  William  Seward,  F.R.S. 


was  necessary  in  a  new  parliament  for  Mr.  Shippen  to  take 
the  oaths  of  allegiance  to  George  II,  when  Sir  Robert  placed 
himself  over  against  him  and  smiled  whilst  he  was  sworn  by 
the  Clerk.  Mr.  Shippen  then  came  up  to  him  and  said  ‘  Indeed, 
Robin,  this  is  hardly  fair  *.*  Ib.  ii.  335. 

In  a  conversation  with  Dr.  Johnson  on  the  subject  of  the 
Due  de  Montmorenci  he  said  :  ‘  Had  I  been  Richelieu,  I  could 
not  have  found  it  in  my  heart  to  have  suffered  the  first  Christian 
baron  to  die  by  the  hands  of  the  executioner2.’  Ib.  iii.  224. 

Dr.  Johnson  used  to  think  Voltaire’s  Life  of  Charles  XII  of 
Sweden  one  of  the  finest  pieces  of  historical  writing  in  any 
language3.  Ib.  iv.  16 r. 

Dr.  Johnson  said  that  he  had  been  told  by  an  acquaintance 
of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  that  in  early  life  he  started  as  a  clamorous 
infidel ;  but  that,  as  he  became  more  informed  on  the  subject, 
he  was  converted  to  Christianity,  and  became  one  of  its  most 
zealous  defenders4.  Supplement  to  Seward's  Anecdotes ,  p.  98. 

Dr.  Johnson  used  to  advise  his  friends  to  be  upon  their  guard 
against  romantic  virtue,  as  being  founded  upon  no  settled  prin¬ 
ciple.  ‘  A  plank,’  added  he,  ‘  that  is  tilted  up  at  one  end  must 
of  course  fall  down  on  the  other.’ 

1  ‘  I  love  to  pour  out  all  myself  as 
plain 

As  downright  Shippen,  or  as  old 
Montaigne.’ 

Pope,  Imitations  of  Horace,  Bk. 

ii.  Sat.  1,  1.  51. 

‘  Shippen  and  Sir  Robert  Walpole 
(writes  Coxe)  had  always  a  personal 
regard  for  each  other.  He  was  fre¬ 
quently  heard  to  say,  “  Robin  and 
I  are  two  honest  men.  He  is  for 
King  George  and  I  for  King  James, 
but  those  men  with  long  cravats 
(meaning  Sandys,  Sir  John  Rushout, 

Gybbon,  and  others)  only  desire 
places,  either  under  King  George  or 
King  James  !  ”  ’  Coxe’s  Meinoirs  of 
Sir  Robert  Walpole ,  ed.  1798.  i.  672. 


2  ‘  Son  supplice  fut  juste,  si  celui 
de  Marillac  ne  l’avait  pas  dte  :  mais 
la  mort  d’un  homme  de  si  grande 
esperance,  qui  avait  gagne  des  ba- 
tailles,  et  que  son  extreme  valeur,  sa 
generosite,  ses  graces  avaient  rendu 
cher  h  toute  la  France,  rendit  le 
Cardinal  plus  odieux  que  n’avait  fait 
la  mort  de  Marillac.’  CEuvres  de 
Voltaire ,  ed.  1819,  xvi.  101. 

3  ‘  I  admire  no  historians  much 
except  Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and 
Tacitus.  .  .  .  There  is  merit,  no  doubt, 
in  Hume,  Robertson,  Voltaire,  and 
Gibbon.  Yet  it  is  not  the  thing.’ 
Macaulay’s  Life,  ed.  1877,  ii.  270. 

4  Life ,  i.  455. 


In 


Anecdotes  by  William  Seward \  F.R.S. 


3°7 


In  a  conversation  with  the  Due  de  Chaulnes  x,  the  duke  said 
to  Johnson,  ‘that  the  morality  of  the  different  religions  existing 
in  the  world  was  nearly  the  same.’  ‘  But  you  must  acknowledge, 
my  lord,’  said  the  Doctor,  ‘  that  the  Christian  religion  alone 
puts  it  upon  its  proper  basis — the  fear  and  love  of  God.’  Ib. 
p.  149. 

Of  Mrs.  Montagu’s  elegant  ‘Essay  upon  Shakspeare,’  he  always 
said,  ‘  that  it  was  ad  hominem ,  that  it  was  conclusive  against 
Voltaire ;  and  that  she  had  done  what  she  intended  to  do 2.’ 

Johnson’s  Preface  to  his  edition  of  Shakspeare  was  styled 
by  Dr.  Adam  Smith,  the  most  manly  piece  of  criticism  that  was 
ever  published  in  any  country3.  Ib.  p.  151. 

Dr.  Johnson  used  to  apply  to  Lord  Chatham  Corneille’s 
celebrated  lines  to  the  Cardinal  de  Richelieu4.  During  the 
American  War  he  used  to  exclaim,  ‘  Make  Lord  Chatham 
Dictator  for  six  months,  and  we  shall  hear  no  more  of  these 
Rebels5.’  Ib.  p.  152. 

1  Letters ,  ii.  362,  n.  5. 

2  ‘JOHNSON.  “Sir,  I  will  venture 
to  say,  there  is  not  one  sentence  of 
true  criticism  in  her  book.”  Garrick. 

“  But,  Sir,  surely  it  shews  how  much 
Voltaire  has  mistaken  Shakspeare, 
which  nobody  else  has  done.”  JOHN¬ 
SON.  “  Sir,  nobody  else  has  thought 
it  worth  while.  And  what  merit  is 
there  in  that?  You  may  as  well 
praise  a  schoolmaster  for  whipping 
a  boy  who  has  construed  ill.”  ’  Life , 
ii.  88. 

3  Adam  Smith  reviewed  the  Dic¬ 
tionary  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for 
1 75 5>  N°-  i*  LJfe ,  i.  298,  71.  2.  See 
post  under  Adam  Smith  on  Dr. 

Johnson. 

4  ‘  Qu’on  parle  mal  ou  bien  du 

fameux  Cardinal, 

Ma  prose  ni  mes  vers  n’en 
diront  jamais  rien  : 

II  m’a  fait  trop  de  bien  pour 
en  dire  du  mal, 

X  2 


II  m’a  fait  trop  de  mal  pour 
en  dire  du  bien.’ 

Johnson  wrote  of  Chatham: — ‘For 
whom  it  will  be  happy  if  the  nation 
shall  at  last  dismiss  him  to  nameless 
obscurity,  with  that  equipoise  of 
blame  and  praise  which  Corneille 
allows  to  Richelieu.’  Works ,  vi.  197. 

For  his  violent  attack  on  Chatham, 
see  Life ,  ii.  314.  In  1778  he  said 
to  Boswell : — ‘  Lord  Chatham  was 
a  Dictator;  he  possessed  the  power 
of  putting  the  State  in  motion  ;  now 
there  is  no  power,  all  order  is  relaxed.’ 
Lb.  iii.  356. 

5  ‘You  talk,  my  Lords,  of  conquer¬ 
ing  America ;  of  your  numerous 
friends  there  to  annihilate  the  Con¬ 
gress,  and  your  powerful  forces  to 
disperse  her  army.  I  might  as 
well  talk  of  driving  them  before  me 
with  this  crutch.’  Lord  Chatham, 
quoted  in  Seward’s  Anecdotes ,  iii. 
389- 


Dr. 


308  Anecdotes  by  William  Seward ,  F.R.S. 


Dr.  Johnson  was  observed  by  a  musical  friend  of  his  to  be 
extremely  inattentive  at  a  concert,  whilst  a  celebrated  solo 
player  was  running  up  the  divisions  and  subdivisions  of  notes 
upon  his  violin.  His  friend,  to  induce  him  to  take  greater 
notice  of  what  was  going  on,  told  him  how  extremely  difficult 
it  was.  ‘Difficult  do  you  call  it,  Sir?’  replied  the  Doctor; 

‘  I  wish  it  were  impossible  V  lb.  p.  267.  ' 

Dr.  Johnson  told  Voltaire’s  antagonist  Freron,  that  vir  erat 
acerrimi  ingenii  ac  paucarum  liter  arum1  2 ;  and  Bishop  War- 
burton  says  of  him,  ‘  that  he  writes  indifferently  well  upon  every 
thing3.’  Ib.  p.  274. 

To  some  one  who  was  complaining  of  his  want  of  memory 
Johnson  said,  ‘Pray,  Sir,  do  you  ever  forget  what  money  you 
are  worth,  or  who  gave  you  the  last  kick  on  your  shins  that 
you  had  ?  Now,  if  you  would  pay  the  same  attention  to  what  you 
read  as  you  do  to  your  temporal  concerns  and  your  bodily 
feelings,  you  would  impress  it  as  deeply  in  your  memory  V 
Seward’s  Biographiana ,  p.  58. 

Dr.  Johnson  said  one  day,  in  talking  of  the  difference  between  • 
English  and  Scotch  education,  ‘  that  if  from  the  first  he  did  not 
come  out  a  scholar,  he  was  fit  for  nothing  at  all ;  whereas  (added 
he)  in  the  last  a  boy  is  always  taught  something  that  may  be  of 
use  to  him  ;  and  he  who  is  not  able  to  read  a  page  of  Tully  will 


1  Life ,  ii.  409  ;  ante ,  ii.  103. 

‘  La  musique  aujourd’hui  n’est  plus 
que  l’art  de  ex^cuter  des  choses 
difficiles,  et  ce  qui  n’est  que  difficile 
ne  plait  point  &  la  longue.’  Candide , 
ch.  25. 

2  Life ,  ii.  406.  Johnson  recorded 
at  Paris  on  Oct.  14,  1775  : — ‘ In  the 
afternoon  I  visited  Mr.  Freron  the 
journalist.  He  spoke  Latin  very 
scantily,  but  seemed  to  understand 
me.’  Ib.  p.  392. 

‘Johnson’s  culture  is  wholly  Eng¬ 
lish  ;  that  not  of  a  Thinker  but  of 
a  “Scholar”:  his  interests  are  wholly 
English  ;  he  sees  and  knows  nothing 
but  England;  he  is  the  John  Bull  of 


Spiritual  Europe :  let  him  live,  love 
him,  as  he  was  and  could  not  but 
be  !  Pitiable  it  is,  no  doubt,  that 
a  Samuel  Johnson  .  .  .  should  see 
nothing  in  the  great  Frederick  but 
“  Voltaire’s  lackey ;  ”  in  Voltaire  him¬ 
self  but  a  man  acerrimi  ingenii,  pau¬ 
carum  lit erar umi  Carlyle’s  Misc. 
Works ,  n.d.  iii.  102. 

3  In  a  letter  to  Hurd,  Warburton 
says,  ‘Voltaire  has  fine  parts  and  is 
a  real  genius.’  Letters  from  a  late 
Eminent  Prelate,  1st  ed.  p.  79. 

4  ‘The  true  art  of  memory  is  the 
art  of  attention.’  The  Idler ,  No.  74. 
See  Life,  iii.  191 ;  v.  68. 


be 


Anecdotes  by  William  Seward,  F.R.S. 


3°9 


be  able  to  become  a  surveyor,  or  to  lay  out  a  garden  V  Lb. 
P-  *9 7- 

Sir  Robert  Walpole’s  general  principle  as  a  minister  was 
‘  Quieta  non  mover e ,  to  let  well  alone.’  This  made  Dr.  Johnson 
say  of  him,  ‘  He  was  the  best  minister  this  country  ever  had  ; 
as  if  we  would  have  let  him  (he  speaks  of  his  own  violent 
faction)  he  would  have  kept  the  country  in  perpetual  peace 1  2.’ 
Ib-  p.  554- 

‘What  is  written  without  effort  (said  Dr.  Johnson)  is  in  general 
read  without  pleasure.’  Ib.  p.  260. 

Dr.  Johnson  was  of  opinion  that  the  happiest,  as  well  as  the 
most  virtuous,  persons  were  to  be  found  amongst  those  who 
united  with  a  business  or  profession  a  love  of  literature 3. 

He  was  constantly  earnest  with  his  friends,  when  they  had 
thoughts  of  marriage,  to  look  out  for  a  religious  wife 4. 
*  A  principle  of  honour  or  fear  of  the  world,’  added  he,  ‘  will 
many  times  keep  a  man  in  decent  order,  but  when  a  woman 
loses  her  religion,  she,  in  general,  loses  the  only  tie  that  will 
restrain  her  actions.  Plautus,  in  his  Amphytrio5,  makes  Alcmena 
say  beautifully  to  her  husband — 

‘Non  ego  illam  mihi  dotem  duco  esse,  quae  dos  dicitur, 

Sed  pudicitiam,  et  pudorem,  et  sedatum  cupidinem, 

Deum  metum,  parentum  amorem,  et  cognatum  concordiam  ; 

Tibi  morigera,  atque  ut  munifica  sim  bonis,  prosim  probis.’ 

Ib.  p.  599. 


1  Life ,  ii.  363  ;  ante ,  ii.  48. 

2  For  Johnson’s  attacks  on  Wal¬ 
pole,  see  Life ,  i.  129,  141.  ‘Walpole’s 
name,’  says  Smollett  describing  the 
last  years  of  his  ministry,  ‘was  seldom 
or  never  mentioned  with  decency, 
except  by  his  own  dependents.’  Hist, 
of  England,  iii.  46.  In  1773  ‘John¬ 

son  called  Mr.  Pitt  a  meteor ;  Sir 

Robert  Walpole  a  fixed  star.’  Life , 
v.  339- 

Horace  Walpole  wrote  on  March 


26,  1771  ‘  One  always  prefers  the 

wisdom  of  one’s  own  age.  My 
father’s  maxim,  Quieta  non  movere , 
was  very  well  in  those  ignorant  days. 
The  science  of  government  is  better 
understood  now — so,  to  be  sure, 
whatever  is,  is  right.'  Walpole’s 
Letters,  v.  292. 

3  Ante,  i.  238  n. ;  ii.  13. 

4  Life,  ii.  76. 

5  Act  ii.  sc.  2,  1.  209. 


He 


3io  Anecdotes  by  William  Seward ,  F.R.S. 


He  was  one  day  asked  by  Mr.  Cator1 2  what  the  Opposition 
meant  by  their  flaming  speeches  and  violent  pamphlets  against 
Lord  North’s  administration.  ‘They  mean,  Sir,  rebellion/  said 
he,  ‘ they  mean  in  spite  to  destroy  that  country  which  they  are 
not  permitted  to  govern  V  lb .  p.  600. 

Mrs.  Cotterell 3  having  one  day  asked  him  to  introduce  her  to 
a  celebrated  writer  ;  ‘  Dearest  Madam/  replied  he,  ‘  you  had 
better  let  it  alone ;  the  best  part  of  every  author  is  in  general 
to  be  found  in  his  book4/  This  idea  he  has  dilated  with  his 
usual  perspicuity  and  illustrated  by  one  of  the  most  appropriate 
similes  in  the  English  language  : — A  transition  from  an  author’s 
book  to  his  conversation  is  too  often  like  an  entrance  into  a  large 
city  after  a  distant  prospect:  remotely,  we  see  nothing  but  spires 
of  temples,  and  turrets  of  palaces,  and  imagine  it  the  residence 
of  splendour,  grandeur,  and  magnificence ;  but  when  we  have 
passed  the  gates  we  find  it  perplexed  with  narrow  passages, 
disgraced  with  despicable  cottages,  embarrassed  with  obstruc¬ 
tions,  and  clouded  with  smoke 5.  Ib.  p.  600. 

The  learned  and  excellent  Charles  Cole 6  having  once  men¬ 
tioned  to  him  a  book  lately  published  on  the  Sacrament 7 ,  he 
replied,  ‘  Sir,  I  look  upon  the  Sacrament  as  the  palladium  of 
religion  ;  I  hope  that  no  profane  hands  will  venture  to  touch 
it.’  lb.  p.  601. 

On  being  asked  in  his  last  illness  what  physician  he  had  sent 


1  Ante,  i.  349  n.  ;  Life ,  iv.  313. 

2  Johnson  said  to  Boswell  in 

1781  ‘  Between  ourselves,  Sir,  I  do 

not  like  to  give  opposition  the  satis¬ 
faction  of  knowing  how  much  I  dis¬ 
approve  of  the  ministry.’  Life ,  iv.  100. 
For  his  contempt  of  it,  see  also  ib.  iii. 
46,  356  ;  iv.  81,  139;  ante ,  i.  104. 

3  Letters ,  ii.  393. 

4  ‘Admiration  begins  where  ac¬ 

quaintance  ceases.’  Rambler,  No.  77. 

Rousseau,  in  Emile ,  speaking  of 


Paris,  says  : — ‘Ceux  qui  pensent  qu’il 
suffit  de  lire  les  livres  qui  s’y  font  se 
trompent ;  on  apprend  beaucoup  plus 
dans  la  conversation  des  auteurs  que 
dans  leurs  livres.’  CEuvres ,  ed.  1782, 
ix.  238. 

5  Rambler ,  No.  14. 

6  Perhaps  Charles  Nalson  Cole, 
who  edited  Soame  Jenyns’s  Works , 
1790. 

7  Perhaps  the  book  mentioned  in 
Johnson’s  Letters ,  ii.  204. 


for 


Anecdotes  by  William  Seward \  F.R.S. 


311 


for, — ‘Dr.  Heberden,’  replied  he,  ‘ ultimum  Romanorum 1)  the 
last  of  the  learned  physicians.’  Ib.  p.  601. 

[The  three  following  anecdotes  attributed  to  Seward  in 
Croker’s  Boswell ,  ix.  255,  I  have  failed  to  trace.] 

Another  admonition  of  his  was,  never  to  go  out  without  some 
little  book  or  other  in  their  pocket.  ‘Much  time,’  added  he 
‘  is  lost  by  waiting,  by  travelling,  &c.,  and  this  may  be  prevented, 
by  making  use  of  every  possible  opportunity  for  improvement  V 

‘  The  knowledge  of  various  languages,’  said  he,  ‘  may  be  kept 
up  by  occasionally  using  bibles  and  prayer-books  in  them  at 
church.’ 

J- 

Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  in  his  picture  of  the  Infant  Hercules, 
painted  for  the  Empress  of  Russia,  in  the  person  of  Tiresias  the 
soothsayer,  gave  an  adumbration  of  Johnson’s  manner1 2 3. 


1  ‘  Thou  last  of  all  the  Romans, 

fare  thee  well.’ 

Julius  Caesar ,  Act  v.  sc.  3,  1.  99. 
See  Letters ,  ii.  95  n. ;  ante ,  ii.  154  n. 

2  On  his  way  to  Harwich  ‘  he  had 
in  his  pocket  Pomponius  Mela  de 
Situ  Orbis ,  which  he  read  occa¬ 
sionally.’  Life ,  i.  465. 

3  ‘The  subject  he  had  chosen  in 
allusion  to  the  power  of  Russia,  then 

in  its  infancy - I  have  heard  Mr. 

Rogers  say  that  Reynolds,  who  was 
always  thinking  of  his  art,  was  one 
day  walking  near  Beaconsfield,  when 
he  met  a  fine  rosy  little  peasant 
boy — a  son  of  Burke’s  bailiff.  Rey¬ 
nolds  patted  him  on  the  head,  and, 


after  looking  earnestly  in  his  face, 
said  “I  must  give  more  colour  to 
my  Infant  Hercules.”  ’  Leslie  and 
Taylor’s  Reynolds ,  ii.  483. 

‘  Reynolds  himself,  on  taking  leave 
of  it,  previous  to  its  departure  for 
Russia,  said : — “  there  were  ten  pic¬ 
tures  under  it,  some  better,  some 
worse.”’  Northcote’s  Reynolds ,  ii. 
219. 

‘  Mr.  Walpole  suggested  to  Sir 
Joshua  [for  his  picture  for  the  Em¬ 
press]  the  scene  Deptford,  and  the 
time  when  the  Czar  Peter  was  re¬ 
ceiving  a  ship-carpenter’s  dress,  in 
exchange  for  his  own,  to  work  in  the 
dock.’  H.  More’s  Memoirs ,  ii.  21. 


ANECDOTES  BY  GEORGE  S  TEE  FENS 

- M - 


[PUBLISHED  in  the  European  Magazine ,  January,  1785,  p.  51, 
under  the  title  of  Johnsoniana.  The  editor  says  by  way  of 
introduction: — ‘Of  the  various  anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson  which 
have  been  given  to  the  Public  Papers  we  select  the  present 
collection,  as  we  have  every  reason  to  rely  on  their  authenticity.’ 

‘These  anecdotes  were  contributed  by  Steevens  himself,  and 
if  they  are  not  altogether  fictitious,  their  language  is  coloured  by 
their  brutality.’  W.  P.  COURTNEY,  Diet .  Nat.  Biog.  xi.  371. 
One  or  two  of  them  which  are  told  by  Boswell  I  have  omitted. 
Life ,  iv.  324.  For  Steevens’s  malignancy  and  untruthfulness  see 
ib.  iii.  281  ;  iv.  178,  n.  1.] 


I  HAVE  been  told,  Dr.  Johnson,  says  a  friend,  that  your 
translation  of  Pope’s  Messiah  was  made  either  as  a  common 
exercise,  or  as  an  imposition  for  some  negligence  you  had  been 
guilty  of  at  College x.  ‘No,  Sir,’  replied  the  Doctor.  ‘  At  Pembroke 
the  former  were  always  in  prose 2,  and  to  the  latter 3  I  would  not 
have  submitted.  I  wrote  it  rather  to  shew  the  tutors  what 
I  could  do,  than  what  I  was  willing  should  be  done.  It  answered 


1  Hawkins  (p.  13)  states  that  it 
was  imposed  on  him  on  account  of 
his  ‘  absenting  himself  from  early 
prayers.’  According  to  Boswell  he 
was  asked  by  his  tutor  to  do  it  as 
a  Christmas  exercise.  Life ,  i.  61. 


2  For  one  of  Johnson’s  exercises  in 
prose  see  ib.  i.  60,  n.  7. 

3  ‘  Johnson  never  used  the  phrases 
the  former  and  the  latter .’  Ib.  iv. 

190. 


my 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens .  313 


my  purpose ;  for  it  convinced  those  who  were  well  enough 
inclined  to  punish  me,  that  I  could  wield  a  scholar’s  weapon  as 
often  as  I  was  menaced  with  arbitrary  inflictions.  Before  the 
frequency  of  personal  satire  had  weakened  its  effect,  the  petty 
Tyrants  of  Colleges1  stood  in  awe  of  a  pointed  remark,  or 
a  vindictive  epigram.  But  since  every  man  in  his  turn  has 
been  wounded,  no  man  is  ashamed  of  a  scar.’ 

‘  I  wrote  (said  Johnson)  the  first  seventy  lines  in  the  Vanity  of 
Human  Wishes  in  the  course  of  one  morning,  in  that  small  house 
beyond  the  church  [at  Hampstead]  2.  The  whole  number  was 


1  At  the  end  of  the  Pembroke 
buttery-book  of  Johnson’s  time  I 
found  scribbled,  probably  by  a  ser¬ 
vitor : — ‘Nothing  is  so  imperious  as 
a  Fellow  of  a  college  upon  his  own 
dunghill,  nothing  so  contemptible 
abroad.’ 

Bentham  entered  Queen’s  College, 
Oxford,  at  the  age  of  twelve.  ‘  His 
tutor  was  a  morose  and  gloomy  per¬ 
sonage,  sour  and  repulsive — a  sort  of 
Protestant  monk.  His  only  anxiety 
about  his  pupil  was  to  prevent  his 
having  any  amusement.’  Bentham’s 
Works ,  x.  37. 

John  James,  who  was  at  Queen’s 
College  in  1778,  writing  of  those  on 
the  Foundation  says: — ‘The  more 
I  see  of  it,  the  more  do  I  felicitate 
myself  that  I  did  not  enter  upon  it. 
I  could  not  bear  to  be  so  brow¬ 
beaten.’  ‘  There  is,’  he  says,  ‘  such 
an  uncharitableness  in  the  manners 
of  a  college,  such  an  unsociable 
reserve,  and  disregard  of  each  other’s 
welfare,  that  I  never  can  think  of 
them  without  growing  out  of  humour 
with  all  about  me.’  Letters  of  Rad- 
cliffe  and  Ja?nes ,  pp.  56,  85. 

Vicesimus  Knox  wrote  in  1781  : — 
‘  The  principal  thing  required  is 
external  respect  from  the  juniors. 
However  ignorant  or  unworthy  a 
senior  fellow  may  be,  yet  the  slightest 


disrespect  is  treated  as  the  greatest 
crime  of  which  an  academic  can  be 
guilty.’  Knox’s  Works ,  iv.  201. 

The  gentlemen -commoners,  to 
judge  from  Gibbon’s  account,  were 
not  exposed  to  any  of  this  tyranny. 
The  servitors  suffered  from  it  most. 
The  commoners,  among  whom  was 
Johnson,  would  have  had  less  to 
feel. 

An  undergraduate  of  Trinity  Col¬ 
lege,  Cambridge,  of  Bentley’s  time, 
in  his  Imitation  of  an  Ode  of  Horace 
(iii.  2),  says  of  the  student : — 

‘With  want  and  rigid  College 
laws 

Let  him  inur’d  betimes  comply.’ 

Monk’s  Be?itley ,  ii.  173. 

2  ‘  Mrs.  Johnson,  for  the  sake  of 
country  air,  had  lodgings  at  Hamp¬ 
stead,  to  which  he  resorted  occasion¬ 
ally,  and  there  the  greatest  part,  if 
not  the  whole,  of  this  Imitatio?i  was 
written.’  Life ,  i.  192.  ‘  I  wrote  (he 

said)  a  hundred  lines  of  it  in  a  day.’ 
Ib.  ii.  15. 

‘  Park  says  the  house  at  which 
Johnson  used  to  lodge  was  the  last 
house  in  Frognal,  southward,  occu¬ 
pied  in  Park’s  time  by  B.  C.  Stephen¬ 
son,  Esq.’  Hewitt’s  Northern  Heig his 
of  London,  ed.  1869,  p.  243. 

Steevens  lived  at  Hampstead.  By 
enclosing  ‘at  Hampstead  ’  in  brackets 

composed 


3r4 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens . 


composed  before  I  threw  a  single  couplet  on  paper.  The  same 
method  I  pursued  in  regard  to  the  Prologue  on  opening  Drury- 
Lane  Theatre.  I  did  not  afterwards  change  more  than  a  word 
in  it,  and  that  was  done  at  the  remonstrance  of  Garrick.  I  did 
not  think  his  criticism  just ;  but  it  was  necessary  he  should  be 
satisfied  with  what  he  was  to  utter  V 

To  a  Gentleman  who  expressed  himself  in  disrespectful  terms 
of  Blackmore 2,  one  of  whose  poetic  bulls  he  happened  just  then 
to  recollect,  Dr.  Johnson  answered,  ‘  I  hope  a  blunder,  after  you 
have  heard  what  I  shall  relate,  will  not  be  reckoned  decisive 
against  a  poet’s  reputation.  When  I  was  a  young  man,  I  trans¬ 
lated  Addison’s  Latin  poem  on  the  Battle  of  the  Cranes  and 
Pygmies ,  and  must  plead  guilty  to  the  following  couplet :  — 

‘  Down  from  the  guardian  boughs  the  nests  they  flung, 

And  kill'd  the  yet  unanimated  young 3 :  ’ 

And  yet,  I  trust,  I  am  no  blockhead. — I  afterwards  changed  the 
the  word  kill'd  into  crush’d.’ 

When  Dr.  Percy  first  published  his  Collection  of  Ancient 
English  Ballads,  perhaps  he  was  too  lavish  in  commendation  of 
the  beautiful  simplicity  and  poetic  merit  he  supposed  himself  to 
discover  in  them.  This  circumstance  provoked  Johnson  to 
observe  one  evening  at  Miss  Reynolds’s  tea  table,  that  he  could 
rhyme  as  well,  and  as  elegantly,  in  common  narrative  and  con¬ 
versation4.  For  instance,  says  he, 


he  apparently  wishes  to  show  that 
it  was  there  that  Johnson  told  him 
this  fact. 

1  Life ,  i.  1 8 1.  See  ante ,  ii.  6  n. 

2  ‘  I  defended  Blackmore’s  sup¬ 
posed  lines,  which  have  been  ridiculed 
as  absolute  nonsense  : — 

“A  painted  vest  Prince  Voltiger 
had  on, 

Which  from  a  naked  Piet  his 
grandsire  won.”’ 

Life ,  ii.  108. 

‘  Blackmore,  by  the  unremitted 


enmity  of  the  wits  whom  he  provoked 
more  by  his  virtue  than  his  dulness, 
has  been  exposed  to  worse  treatment 
than  he  deserved.’  Works ,  viii.  49. 
F or  Locke’s  admiration  of  Blackmore 
see  Warton’s  Pope’s  Works,  ed.  1822, 
iv.  62  n. 

3  ‘  Omnia  vastaret  miles,  foetusque 

necaret 

Immeritos,  vitamque  abrumperet 
imperfectam.’ 

Addison’s  Works,  ed.  1862,  i.  240. 

4  Life,  ii.  212  ;  iii.  158. 


As 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


3T5 


As  with  my  hat  upon  my  head 
I  walk’d  along  the  Strand, 

I  there  did  meet  another  man 
With  his  hat  in  his  hand. 

Or  to  render  such  poetry  subservient  to  my  own  immediate  use, 

I  therefore  pray  thee,  Renny1  dear, 

That  thou  wilt  give  to  me, 

With  cream  and  sugar  soften’d  well, 

Another  dish  of  tea. 

Nor  fear  that  I,  my  gentle  maid, 

Shall  long  detain  the  cup, 

When  once  unto  the  bottom  I 
Have  drunk  the  liquor  up. 

Yet  hear,  alas  !  this  mournful  truth, 

Nor  hear  it  with  a  frown  ; — 

Thou  canst  not  make  the  tea  so  fast 
As  I  can  gulp  it  down. 

And  thus  he  proceeded  through  several  more  stanzas,  till  the 
Reverend  Critic  cried  out  for  quarter. 

‘Pray,’  said  Garrick’s  mother  to  Johnson,  ‘What  is  your 
opinion  of  my  son  David  ?  ’  ‘  Why,  Madam,’  replied  the  Doctor, 

‘  David  will  either  be  hanged,  or  become  a  great  man 2.’ 

When  Bolingbroke  died,  and  bequeathed  the  publication  of  his 
works  to  Mallet,  Johnson  observed: — ‘  His  Lordship  has  loaded 
a  blunderbuss  against  Religion,  and  has  left  a  Scoundrel  to  pull 
the  trigger3.’  Being  reminded  of  this  a  few  years  ago,  the  Doctor 
exclaimed,  ‘  Did  I  really  say  so?’  ‘Yes,  Sir.’  He  replied,  ‘  I  am 
heartily  glad  of  it.’ 

‘  You  knew  Mr.  Capel 4,  Dr.  Johnson  ?  ’  ‘Yes,  Sir ;  I  have  seen 


1  For  Johnson’s  abbreviations  of 
names  see  Life,  ii.  258. 

2  Garrick  was  a  pupil  of  Johnson’s 
academy  at  Edial.  Ante ,  ii.  237. 

3  Life,  i.  268  ;  ante,  i.  408. 

4  Edward  Capell.  ‘  Of  the  Preface 
to  Capell’s  Shakespeare ,  Dr.  Johnson 
said  : — “  If  the  man  would  have  come 
to  me,  I  would  have  endeavoured  to 
endow  his  purposes  with  words  ;  for, 


as  it  is,  he  doth  gabble  monstrously.”  ’ 
Life,  iv.  5. 

‘  Defects  of  style  apart,  this  preface 
was  by  far  the  most  valuable  contri¬ 
bution  to  Shakespearian  criticism 
that  had  yet  appeared,  and  the  text 
was  based  upon  a  most  searching 
collation  of  all  the  Folios  and  of  all 
the  Quartos  known  to  exist  at  that 
time.  . . .  His  unequalled  zeal  and  in- 

him 


3i6 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


him  at  Garricks/  ‘And  what  think  you  of  his  abilities?5  ‘They 
are  just  sufficient,  Sir,  to  enable  him  to  select  the  black  hairs 
from  the  white  ones,  for  the  use  of  the  periwig-makers.  Were 
he  and  I  to  count  the  grains  in  a  bushel  of  wheat  for  a  wager,  he 
would  certainly  prove  the  winner.5 

When  one  Collins,  a  sleep-compelling  divine  of  Herefordshire, 
with  the  assistance  of  Counsellor  Hardinge,  published  a  heavy 
half-crown  pamphlet  against  Mr.  Steevens1,  Garrick  asked  the 
Doctor,  what  he  thought  of  this  attack  on  his  coadjutor. 
‘I  regard  Collins’s  performance,5  replied  Johnson,  ‘as  a  great  gun 
without  powder  or  shot.5  When  the  same  Collins  afterwards 
appeared  as  editor  of  Capel’s  Posthmnous  Notes  on  Shakespeare , 
with  a  preface  of  his  own,  containing  the  following  words, 
‘  A  sudden  and  most  severe  stroke  of  affliction  has  left  my  mind 
too  much  distracted  to  be  capable  [at  present]  of  engaging  in 
such  a  task  (that  of  a  further  attack  on  Mr.  Steevens),  though 
I  am  prompted  to  it  by  inclination  as  well  as  duty 2,- — the  Doctor 
asked  to  what  misfortune  the  foregoing  words  referred.  Being 


dustry  have  never  received  from  the 
public  the  recognition  they  deserved.’ 
Cambridge  Shakespeare ,  ed.  1891,  i. 
Preface,  pp.  37-8. 

1  John  Collins  was  in  charge  of 
the  parish  of  Ledbury  in  Hereford¬ 
shire.  In  1 777,  with  the  assistance 
of  George  Hardinge,  he  published 
an  anonymous  letter  in  refutation  of 
Steevens’ s  criticisms  of  Capell.  Capell 
bequeathed  to  him  a  large  sum  of 
money.  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.  xi.  371  ; 
xxiv.  340. 

Hardinge  is  aimed  at  in  the  follow¬ 
ing  lines  in  Don  Juan  (Canto  xiii. 
stanza  88) : — 

‘  There  was  the  waggish  Welsh 
Judge,  Jefferies  Hardsman, 

In  his  grave  office  so  completely 
skill’d, 

That  when  a  culprit  came  for 
condemnation, 

He  had  his  judge’s  joke  for  con¬ 
solation.’ 


The  title  of  the  pamphlet  is  A  Letter 
to  George  Hardinge ,  Esq.,  on  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  a  Passage  in  Mr.  Steevens ’ 
Preface  to  his  Bnpressions  of  Shake¬ 
speare.  London,  1777.  4to,  price  three 
shillings.  Lowndes’s  Bibl.  Man.  p. 
2319. 

2  Collins,  in  his  Dedication  to 
Lord  Dacre  (not  in  his  Preface), 
accuses  Steevens  of ‘having  dressed 
up  his  volumes  [of  Shakespeare] 
throughout  by  appropriating  to  him¬ 
self,  without  reserve,  whatever  suited 
his  purpose  from  the  present  Author’s 
edition,  with  which  he  disclaims  the 
slightest  acquaintance.  Without  this 
detail  the  claim  of  the  true  owner  to 
what  has  been  obtruded  upon  the 
•Public  as  the  property  of  another  is 
left  at  large  undecided  and  unas¬ 
serted.’  He  continues  in  the  words 
quoted  by  Steevens,  though  after 
‘  capable,’  ‘  at  present  ’  has  been 
omitted. 


told 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


3T7 


told  that  the  critic  had  lost  his  wife,  Johnson  added,  ‘ I  believe 

i 

that  the  loss  of  teeth  may  deprave  the  voice  of  a  singer,  and  that 
lameness  will  impede  the  motions  of  a  dancing  master,  but 
I  have  not  yet  been  taught  to  regard  the  death  of  a  wife  as 
the  grave  of  literary  exertions.  When  my  dear  Mrs.  Johnson 
expired  I  sought  relief  in  my  studies,  and  strove  to  lose  the 
recollection  of  her  in  the  toils  of  literature1.  Perhaps,  however, 
I  wrong  the  feelings  of  this  poor  fellow.  His  wife  might  have 
held  the  pen  in  his  name.  Hinc  illce  lachrymcz 2.  Nay,  I  think 
I  observe,  throughout  his  two  pieces,  a  woman’s  irritability,  with 
a  woman’s  impotence  of  revenge.’  Yet  such  were  Johnson’s 
tender  remembrances  of  his  own  wife,  that  after  her  death, 
though  he  had  a  whole  house  at  command,  he  would  study 
nowhere  but  in  a  garret.  Being  asked  the  reason  why  he  chose 
a  situation  so  incommodious,  he  answered,  ‘  Because  in  that  room 
only  I  never  saw  Mrs.  Johnson3/ 

‘What  think  you,  Dr.  Johnson, of  Mr.  M - n’s4  conversation?’ 

‘  I  think,  Sir,  it  is  a  constant  renovation  of  hope,  and  an  unvaried 
succession  of  disappointment.’ 

‘  My  dear  Sir,  don’t  disturb  my  feelings  (said  Garrick  to 
Johnson  one  night  behind  the  scenes);  consider  the  exertions 
T  have  to  go  through.’  ‘As  to  your  feelings,  David,’  replied 
Johnson,  ‘Punch  has  just  as  many;  and  as  for  your  exertions, 
those  of  a  man  who  cries  turnips  about  the  streets  are 
greater 5.’ 

‘Were  you  ever,  Sir,  in  company  with  Dr.  Warburton?’ 
‘  I  never  saw  him  till  one  evening  about  a  week  ago,  at  the 
Bishop  of  St.  ’s 6.  At  first  he  looked  surlily  at  me ;  but 


1  See  ante ,  i.  12,  for  his  prayer 
‘  as  preparatory  to  his  return  to  life 
to-morrow.’ 

2  Terence,  Andria ,  i.  1.  99. 

3  It  was  in  Gough  Square  that  he 
was  living  at  the  time  of  her  death. 

It  was  in  an  upper  room,  probably 

a  garret,  that  his  assistants  in  the 

Dictionary  worked.  Life ,  i.  188. 


4  Macklin.  Ante,  ii.  2  n.,  and  Life, 
ii.  122. 

5  A?ite,  i.  457  ;  ii.  438. 

6  The  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph.  Bos¬ 
well,  who  had  seen  this  account, 
writes  : — ‘  If  I  am  rightly  informed, 
after  a  careful  enquiry,  they  [John¬ 
son  and  Warburton]  never  met  but 
once,  which  was  at  the  house  of 

after 


3l8 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


after  we  had  been  jostled  into  conversation,  he  took  me  to 
a  window,  asked  me  some  questions,  and,  before  we  parted, 
was  so  well  pleased  with  me,  that  he  patted  me.’  ‘You  always, 
Sir,  preserved  a  respect  for  him?’  ‘Yes,  and  justly.  When 
as  yet  I  was  in  no  favour  with  the  world,  he  spake  well  of  me, 
and  I  hope  I  never  forgot  the  obligation  *.* 

‘Though  you  brought  a  Tragedy,  Sir,  to  Drury-Lane2,  and 
at  one  time  were  so  intimate  with  Garrick,  you  never  appeared 
to  have  much  theatrical  acquaintance.’ — ‘  Sir,  while  I  had,  in 
common  with  other  dramatic  authors,  the  liberty  of  the  scenes, 
without  considering  my  admission  behind  them  as  a  favour, 
I  was  frequently  at  the  theatre.  At  that  period  all  the  wenches 
knew  me,  and  dropped  me  a  curtsey  as  they  passed  on  to  the 
stage 3.  But  since  poor  Goldsmith’s  last  Comedy,  I  scarce 
recollect  having  seen  the  inside  of  a  playhouse4.  To  speak 
the  truth,  there  is  small  encouragement  there  for  a  man  whose 
sight  and  hearing  are  become  so  imperfect  as  mine.  I  may 
add,  that,  Garrick  and  Henderson5  excepted,  I  never  met  with 


Mrs.  French,  in  London,  well  known 
for  her  elegant  assemblies,  and  bring¬ 
ing  eminent  characters  together.  The 
interview  proved  to  be  mutually 
agreeable.’  Life,  iv.  48. 

1  In  his  Shakespeare  he  praised 
Johnson’s  Observations  on  Macbeth. 
Ib.  i.  176.  For  Johnson’s  criticism 
of  him  see  ante,  i.  381. 

2  Ante,  i.  386. 

3  See  Life,  i.  201  for  the  ‘  considera¬ 
tions  of  rigid  virtue’  which,  if  Gar¬ 
rick’s  story  is  to  be  trusted,  kept 
him  from  going  any  longer  behind 
the  scenes. 

4  For  She  Stoops  to  Conquer  see 
ib.  iv.  325.  Johnson  went  to  Mrs. 
Abington’s  benefit  two  years  later. 
Lb.  ii.  324. 

5  Johnson,  speaking  to  Henderson 
‘  of  a  certain  dramatic  writer,  said, 
“  I  never  did  the  man  an  injury ;  but 
he  would  persist  in  reading  his 
tragedy  to  me.”  ’  Life ,  iv.  244,  n.  2. 


The  man  was  Joseph  Reed,  the 
author  of  Dido.  Nichols,  Lit.  Anec. 
ix.  1 16. 

Henderson  died  less  than  a  year 
after  Johnson  ( Gentleman' s  Maga¬ 
zine,  1785,  p.  923),  and  was  buried 
in  Westminster  Abbey  close  to  him. 
See  the  Plan  in  Stanley’s  Westminster 
Abbey,  ed.  1868,  p.  268. 

‘  Cumberland  said  that  the  three 
finest  pieces  of  acting  which  he 
had  ever  witnessed  were  Garrick’s 
Lear,  Henderson’s  Falstaff,  and 
Cooke’s  Iago.’  Rogers’s  Table-Talk, 
p.  136. 

Macaulay,  recording  a  voyage  to 
Dublin,  during  which  ‘  he  went 
through  Paradise  Lost  in  his  head,’ 
says  : — ‘  In  the  dialogue  at  the  end 
of  the  fourth  book  Satan  and  Gabriel 
became  to  me  quite  like  two  of 
Shakespeare’s  men.  Old  Sharp  once 
told  me  that  Henderson  the  actor 
used  to  say  to  him  that  there  was  no 

a  performer 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


3T9 


a  performer  who  had  studied  his  art,  or  could  give  an  intelligible 
reason  for  what  he  did  V 


Though  Dr.  Johnson  was  no  enemy  to  a  proper  and  well- 
timed  compliment,  he  would  sometimes  express  his  dislike  of 
awkward  and  hyperbolical  adulation.  To  a  literary  dame 2, 
who  had  persecuted  him  throughout  a  whole  afternoon  with 
coarse  and  incessant  flattery  (after  making  several  fruitless  efforts 
to  stop  her  career),  he  said,  and  loud  enough  for  half  the 
company  present  to  hear — ‘  My  dear,  before  you  are  so  lavish 
of  your  praise,  you  ought  to  consider  whether  it  be  worth 
having.’ 

*  I  am  convinced  (said  he  to  a  friend)  I  ought  to  be  present 
at  divine  service  more  frequently  than  I  am  ;  but  the  provo¬ 
cations  given  by  ignorant  and  affected  preachers  too  often 
disturb  the  mental  calm  which  otherwise  would  succeed  to 
prayer3.  I  am  apt  to  whisper  to  myself  on  such  occasions — 
How  can  this  illiterate  fellow  dream  of  fixing  attention,  after 
we  have  been  listening  to  the  sublimest  truths,  conveyed  in 
the  most  chaste  and  exalted  language,  throughout  a  Liturgy 
which  must  be  regarded  as  the  genuine  offspring  of  piety 
impregnated  by  wisdom  ?  Take  notice,  however — though  I 
make  this  confession  respecting  myself,  I  do  not  mean  to 
recommend  the  fastidiousness  that  led  me  to  exchange  con¬ 
gregational  for  solitary  worship.’ — Dr.  Johnson,  notwithstanding, 
was  at  Streatham  church  when  the  unfortunate  Dodd’s  first 
application  to  him  was  made.  The  Doctor  went  out  of  his 
pew  immediately,  wrote  a  suitable  reply  to  the  letter  he  had 


better  acting  scene  in  the  English 
drama  than  this.  I  now  felt  the 
truth  of  the  criticism.’  Trevelyan’s 
Macaulay ,  ed.  1877,  ii.  265. 

1  ‘  I  should  like  (wrote  Sir  Walter 
Scott),  if  it  were  possible,  to  ana¬ 
tomize  Mrs.  Siddons’  intellect,  that 
we  might  discover  in  what  her  un¬ 
rivalled  art  consisted  ;  she  has  not 
much  sense,  and  still  less  sound 
taste,  no  reading  but  in  her  pro¬ 
fession,  and  with  a  view  to  the 


boards,  and  on  the  whole  has  always 
seemed  to  me  a  vain,  foolish  woman 
spoiled  (and  no  wonder)  by  un¬ 
bounded  adulation  to  a  degree  that 
deserved  praise  tasted  faint  on  her 
palate.’  Familiar  Letters ,  Boston, 
1894,  ii.  42. 

2  Hannah  More.  Ante ,  i.  273  ; 
ii.  179  ?i. 

3  For  his  ‘great  reluctance  to  go 
to  Church,’  see  TJfe ,  i.  67,  and  for  his 
irregular  attendance,  ante ,  i.  81. 

received 


32° 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


received,  and  afterwards,  when  he  related  this  circumstance, 
added, — ‘  I  hope  I  shall  be  pardoned,  if  for  once  I  deserted 
the  service  of  God  for  that  of  man  V 

J 

On  the  night  before  the  publication  of  the  first  edition  of 
his  Shakespeare1 2,  he  supped  with  some  friends  in  the  Temple, 
who  kept  him  up,  ‘nothing  loth3,’  till  past  five  the  next  morning. 
Much  pleasantry  was  passing  on  the  subject  of  commentatorship; 
when,  all  on  a  sudden,  the  Doctor,  looking  at  his  watch,  cried 
out — ‘This  is  sport  to  you,  gentlemen;  but  you  do  not  con¬ 
sider  there  are  at  most  only  four  hours  between  me  and 
criticism.’ 

Previous  to  this  convivial  meeting,  Mr.  Tonson4 *  had  desired 
a  gentleman  to  ask  our  Author  if  he  could  ascertain  the  number 
of  his  subscribers?  ‘No,’  replied  the  Doctor;  ‘two  material 
reasons  forbid  even  a  guess  of  mine  on  the  subject — I  have  lost 
all  the  names,  and  spent  all  the  money.  It  came  in  small 
portions,  and  departed  in  the  same  manner  V — There  were 
afterwards  receipts  for  near  a  thousand  copies  carried  in  to 
Tonson  6. 

‘  I  have  seldom  met  with  a  man  whose  colloquial  ability 
exceeded  that  of  Mallet7.  I  was  but  once  in  Sterne’s  company, 
and  then  his  only  attempt  at  merriment  consisted  in  his  display 
of  a  drawing  too  indecently  gross  to  have  delighted  even  in 
a  brothel8.  Colman  never  produced  a  luckier  thing  than  his 
first  Ode  in  ridicule  of  Gray.  A  considerable  part  of  it  may 
be  numbered  among  those  felicities  which  no  man  has  twice 


1  He  was  in  church,  Boswell  says, 
when  a  later  letter  of  Dodd’s  reached 
him.  ‘  He  stooped  down  and  read 
it,  and  wrote  when  he  went  home  the 
following  letter  for  Dr.  Dodd  to  the 
King.’  Life ,  iii.  144. 

2  Life ,  i.  496. 

3  Paradise  Lost ,  ix.  1039. 

4  Life ,  i.  227,  n.  3. 

s  lb.  iv.  III. 

6  For  each  copy  Johnson,  I  believe, 

received  a  guinea.  Letters ,  i.  68, 

124,  n.  2. 


7  ‘  His  conversation  was  elegant 
and  easy.  The  rest  of  his  character 
may,  without  injury  to  his  memory, 
sink  into  silence.’  Works,  viii.  468  ; 
Life,  i.  268,  n.  1. 

8  In  Murray’s  fohnsoniana ,  ed. 
1836,  p.  133,  Sterne  is  changed  into 
Hume.  ‘Johnson.  “The  man  Sterne, 
I  have  been  told,  has  had  engagements 
for  three  months.”  Goldsmith. 
“  And  a  very  dull  fellow.”  Johnson. 
“  Why  no,  Sir.”  ’  Life ,  ii.  222. 


attained 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


321 


attained1.  Gray  was  the  very  Torre2  of  poetry.  He  played 
his  coruscations  so  speciously,  that  his  steel-dust  is  mistaken 
by  many  for  a  shower  of  gold.’ 

At  one  period  of  the  Doctor’s  life,  he  was  reconciled  to  the 
bottle 3.  Sweet  wines,  however,  were  his  chief  favourites- 
When  none  of  these  were  before  him,  he  would  sometimes 
drink  Port,  with  a  lump  of  sugar  in  every  glass4.  The  strongest 
liquors,  and  in  very  large  quantities,  produced  no  other  effect 
on  him  than  moderate  exhilaration.  Once,  and  but  once,  he 
is  known  to  have  had  his  dose 5 ;  a  circumstance  which  he 
himself  discovered,  on  finding  one  of  his  sesquipedalion  words 


hang  fire.  He  then  ,  started  up 
it  time  we  should  go  to  bed 6.’ 

1  4  The  Odes  to  Obscurity  and  Ob¬ 
livion ,  in  ridicule  of  “  cool  Mason 
and  warm  Gray,”  being  mentioned, 
Johnson  said,  “They  are  Colman’s 
best  things.” 5  Life,  ii.  334. 

Gray  wrote  of  them  in  July,  1760: — • 

4 1  believe  his  Odes  sell  no  more  than 
mine  did,  for  I  saw  a  heap  of  them 
lie  in  a  bookseller’s  window,  who 
recommended  them  to  me  as  a  very 
pretty  thing.’  Gray’s  Works ,  ed. 
1858,  iii.  250. 

4  Gray  (to  whom  nothing  is  want¬ 
ing  to  render  him,  perhaps,  the  first 
poet  in  the  English  language  but  to 
have  written  a  little  more''  is  said  to 
have  been  so  much  hurt  by  a  foolish 
and  impertinent  parody  of  two  of  his 
finest  odes,  that  he  never  afterwards 
attempted  any  considerable  work.5 
Adam  Smith’s  Theory  of  Moral 
Sentiments,  ed.  1801,  i.  255. 

2  See  Life,  iv.  324,  for  Johnson’s 
going  to  see  4  the  celebrated  Torrd’s 
fireworks  at  Marybone  Gardens.’ 

3  lb.  i.  103,  n.  3  ;  ante ,  i.  217. 

4  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that 
when  ‘  University  College  witnessed 
him  drink  three  bottles  of  port  with¬ 
out  being  the  worse  for  it’  (ib.  iii. 

VOL.  II. 


,  and  gravely  observed — ‘  I  think 
After  a  ten  years’  forbearance 

245),  he  put  a  lump  of  sugar  into 
every  one  of  his  thirty-six  glasses. 
No  Oxford  common-room  would  have 
stood  it.  Boswell,  who  drank  port 
with  him  till  either  the  wine  made 
his  head  ache,  or  the  sense  his  friend 
put  into  it  (ib.  iii.  381),  makes  no 
mention  of  this  sugar. 

5  4  Dose  is  often  used  of  the  utmost 
quantity  of  strong  liquor  that  a  man 
can  swallow.  He  has  his  dose,  that 
is,  he  can  carry  off  no  more.’  John¬ 
son’s  Dictionary. 

6  4  Sir  Joshua  informed  a  friend 
that  he  had  never  seen  Dr.  Johnson 
intoxicated  by  hard  drinking  but 
once,  and  that  happened  at  the  time 
that  they  were  together  in  Devon¬ 
shire,  when  one  night  after  supper 
Johnson  drank  three  bottles  of  wine, 
which  affected  his  speech  so  much 
that  he  was  unable  to  articulate 
a  hard  word,  which  occurred  in  the 
course  of  his  conversation.  He  at¬ 
tempted  it  three  times  but  failed  ;  yet 
at  last  accomplished  it,  and  then 
said,  44  Well,  Sir  Joshua,  I  think  it  is 
now  time  to  go  to  bed.”5  North- 
cote’s  Life  of  Reynolds,  ii.  161. 

Johnson  did  not  say  4  Sir  Joshua,’ 

of 


Y 


322 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


of  every  fluid,  except  tea  and  sherbet,  ‘  I  drank/  said  he,  ‘  one 
glass  of  wine  to  the  health  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  on  the 
evening  of  the  day  on  which  he  was  knighted.  I  never  swallowed 
another  drop  till  old  Madeira  was  prescribed  to  me  as  a  cordial 
during  my  present  indisposition x,  but  this  liquor  did  not  relish 
as  formerly,  and  I  therefore  discontinued  it.’ 

Every  change,  however,  in  his  habits,  had  invariable  reference 
to  that  insanity  which,  from  his  two-and-twentieth  year,  he 
had  taught  himself  to  apprehend2.  Whether  he  had  once 
suffered  from  a  temporary  alienation  of  mind,  or  expected  it 
only  in  consequence  of  some  obscure  warning  he  supposed 
himself  to  have  received,  will  always  remain  a  secret.  To 
dispel  the  gloom  that  so  constantly  oppressed  him,  he  had 
originally  recourse  to  wine.  Afterwards,  he  suspected  danger 
from  it 3 :  ‘  For  (said  he)  what  ferments  the  spirits  may  also 
derange  the  intellects,  and  the  means  employed  to  counteract 
dejection  may  hasten  the  approach  of  madness.  Even  fixed, 
substantial  melancholy  is  preferable  to  a  state  in  which  we  can 
neither  amend  the  future,  nor  solicit  mercy  for  the  past.’ 
Impressed  as  he  was  with  such  ideas,  each  precaution  he  could 
adopt  appeared  hazardous  in  its  turn.  Even  his  favourite  tea 
had  been  gradually  drunk  by  him  in  reduced  quantities,  and 
at  last  was  totally  laid  aside.  Milk4  became  its  substitute; 
and  he  looked  forward  to  the  spring,  when  he  expected  his 
new  beverage  would  prove  yet  more  salutary.  ‘  Perhaps  (says 
he)  I  shall  conclude  with  what  I  ought  to  have  begun.  Milk 
was  designed  for  our  nutriment ;  tea  and  similar  potations  are 
all  adscititious.’ 


as  it  was  in  1762  that  they  visited 
Devonshire ;  Reynolds  was  knighted 
on  April  21, 1769.  Taylor’s  Reynolds, 
i.  321. 

‘I  used  to  slink  home  (Johnson 
said)  when  I  had  drunk  too  much.’ 
Life ,  iii.  389.  See  also  ib.  i.  94. 

1  lb.  iv.  72. 

2  Ib.  i.  63  ;  iii.  175  ;  ante ,  i.  472. 

3  ‘Melancholy,  indeed  (said  John¬ 


son)  should  be  diverted  by  every 
means  but  drinking.’  Life,  iii.  5. 
See  also  ib.  i.  277,  n.  1. 

4  On  Nov.  14,  1781,  he  wrote  : — 
‘  Here  is  Doctor  Taylor,  by  a  reso¬ 
lute  adherence  to  bread  and  milk, 
with  a  better  appearance  of  health 
than  he  has  had  for  a  long  time  past.’ 
Letters ,  ii.  236. 


At 


f 

Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


323 


At  last,  perhaps,  his  death  was  accelerated  by  his  own  im¬ 
prudence.  If  ‘a  little  learning  is  a  dangerous  thing1’  on  any 
speculative  subject,  it  is  eminently  more  so  in  the  practical 
science  of  physic.  Johnson  was  too  frequently  his  own  patient2. 
In  October,  [1784,]  just  before  he  came  to  London,  he  had 
taken  an  unusual  dose  of  squills,  but  without  effect 3.  He 
swallowed  the  same  quantity  on  his  arrival  here,  and  it  pro¬ 
duced  a  most  violent  operation.  He  did  not,  as  he  afterwards 
confessed,  reflect  on  the  difference  between  the  perished  and 
inefficacious  vegetable  he  found  in  the  country,  and  the  fresh 
and  potent  one  of  the  same  kind  he  was  sure  to  meet  with 
in  town.  ‘  You  find  me  at  present,’  says  he,  ‘  suffering  from 
a  prescription  of  my  own.  When  I  am  recovered  from  its 
consequences,  and  not  till  then,  I  shall  know  the  true  state 
of  my  natural  malady.’  From  this  period,  he  took  no  medicine 
without  the  approbation  of  Heberden.  What  follows  is  known 
by  all,  and  by  all  lamented — ere  now,  perhaps — even  by  the 
prebends  of  Westminster 4. 

Dr.  Johnson  confessed  himself  to  have  been  sometimes  in 
the  power  of  bailiffs.  Richardson,  the  author  of  Clarissa ,  was 
his  constant  friend  on  such  occasions  5.  ‘  I  remember  writing  to 

him,’  said  Johnson,  ‘from  a  sponging  house;  and  was  so  sure 
of  my  deliverance  through  his  kindness  and  liberality,  that, 
before  his  reply  was  brought,  I  knew  I  could  afford  to  joke 
with  the  rascal  who  had  me  in  custody,  and  did  so,  over  a  pint 
of  adulterated  wine,  for  which,  at  that  instant,  I  had  no  money 
to  pay6.’ 


1  Pope,  Essay  on  Criticism ,  1.  215. 

2  Life,  iii.  152;  Letters ,  ii.  165  n. 

3  On  August  16  he  had  written  to 
Dr.  Brocklesby: — ‘The  squills  I  have 
not  neglected  ;  for  I  have  taken  more 
than  100  drops  a  day,  and  one  day 
took  250.’  On  the  19th  he  wrote: — 
‘  The  squills  have  every  suffrage,  and 
in  the  squills  we  will  rest  for  the 
present.’  Life ,  iv.  355. 

4  Ante ,  i.  449  n. ;  ii.  137  n. 

5  Life ,  i.  303  ;  Letters ,  i.  61. 


6  Life ,  i.  304  n. 

Johnson  defines  a  sfunging-house 
as  ‘a  house  to  which  debtors  are 
taken  before  commitment  to  prison, 
where  the  bailiffs  sponge  upon  them, 
or  riot  at  their  cost.’  Why  in  all 
likelihood  Johnson  ordered  the  wine 
is  explained  in  the  following  passage 
in  Fielding’s  Amelia ,  Bk.  viii.  ch. 
10  : — ‘  “  What  say  you  (said  the 
bailiff  to  Booth)  to  a  glass  of  white 
wine,  or  a  tiff  of  punch,  by  way  of 

It 


Y  2, 


324 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


It  has  been  already  observed,  that  Johnson  had  lost  the  sight 
of  one  of  his  eyes1.  Mr.  Ellis2,  an  ancient  gentleman  now 


whet  ?  ”  “I  have  told  you,  Sir, 
I  never  drink  in  the  morning,”  cries 
Booth  a  little  peevishly.  “No  offence, 
I  hope,  Sir,”  said  the  bailiff ;  “  I  hope 
I  have  not  treated  you  with  any  in¬ 
civility.  I  don’t  ask  any  gentleman 
to  call  for  liquor  in  my  house,  if  he 
doth  not  choose  it  ;  nor  I  don’t 
desire  anybody  to  stay  here  longer 
than  they  have  a  mind  to. — New¬ 
gate,  to  be  sure,  is  the  place  for  all 
debtors  that  can’t  find  bail.  ...  I’d 
have  you  consider  that  the  twenty- 
four  hours  appointed  by  Act  of 
Parliament  are  almost  out  ;  and  so 
it  is  time  to  think  of  removing.”  .  .  . 
“  I  did  not  think  (said  Booth)  to  ha  ve 
offended  you  so  much  by  refusing  to 
drink  in  a  morning.”  ’ 

In  Joseph  Andrews ,  Bk.  iii.  ch.  3, 
the  prison  is  described  to  which  the 
debtor  was  transferred ;  where  ‘  he 
was  crowded  in  with  a  great  number 
of  miserable  wretches,  in  common 
with  whom  he  was  destitute  of  every 
convenience  of  life,  even  that  which 
all  the  brutes  enjoy,  wholesome  air.’ 
See  also  Jonathan  Wi/d,  Bk.  i.  ch.  4. 

John  Howard  describes  how  ‘all 
sorts  of  prisoners  are  confined 
together;  debtors  and  felons.’  ‘One 
cause  (he  adds)  why  the  rooms  in 
some  prisons  are  so  close  is  perhaps 
the  window-tax,  which  the  gaolers 
have  to  pay  ;  this  tempts  them  to 
stop  the  windows,  and  stifle  their 
prisoners.  In  many  Gaols,  and  in 
most  Bridewells,  there  is  no  allow¬ 
ance  of  straw  for  prisoners  to  sleep 
on.  The  frequent  effect  of  confine¬ 
ment  in  prison  seems  generally  under¬ 
stood,  and  shews  how  full  of  em- 
phatical  meaning  is  the  curse  of  a 
severe  creditor,  who  pronounces  his 
debtor’s  doom  to  Rot  in  Gaol.’ 


State  oj  the  Prisons ,  ed.  1 777,  pp. 
15-17. 

In  the  Ajmual  Register ,  1769,  i. 
1 14,  is  the  account  of  a  discharge  of 
a  debtor  after  twenty-seven  years’ 
imprisonment,  under  an  Act  for  the 
Relief  of  Insolvent  Debtors.  He  had 
not  been  guilty  of  ‘fraudulent  inten¬ 
tion,’  neither  had  he  been  ‘a  debtor 
to  the  Crown,’  otherwise  he  would 
not  have  had  the  benefit  of  the  Act. 
Ge?itleman' s  Magazine ,  1769,  p.  266. 

1  Life,  i.  41. 

2  ‘It  is  wonderful,  Sir  (said  John¬ 
son),  what  is  to  be  found  in  London. 
The  most  literary  conversation  that 
I  ever  enjoyed  was  at  the  table  of 
Jack  Ellis,  a  money-scrivener,  behind 
the  Royal  Exchange,  with  whom  I  at 
one  period  used  to  dine  generally 
once  a  week.’  Ib.  iii.  21. 

Jeremy  Bentham  said,  ‘  I  supped 
at  the  Mitre  Tavern  once,  when  they 
exhibited  a  complete  service  of  plate. 
We  came  to  hear  Johnson’s  good 
things.  There  was  Bickerstaff, — 
there  was  Ellis,  the  last  scrivener  of 
the  City  of  London,  who  died  at  the 
age  of  ninety-four,  a  pleasant  old 
fellow, — there  was  Hoole,  and  there 
was  Goldsmith.  But  I  was  angry 
with  Goldsmith  for  writing  the 
Deserted  Village .  I  liked  nothing 
gloomy ;  besides  it  was  not  true, 
for  there  were  no  such  villages.’ 
Bentham’s  Works, x.  124.  Bentham’s 
father  had  been  Clerk  to  the 
Scriveners’  Company.  Ib.  p.  279. 

Milton’s  father  and  Gray’s  father 
were  scriveners.  Johnson’s  Works , 
vii.  66  ;  viii.  476. 

Johnson  defines  money  scrivener 
as  ‘one  who  raises  money  for  others,’ 
and  quotes  a  passage  from  Arbuthnot, 
where  it  is  said  : — ‘  Such  fellows  are 

living 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


325 


living  (author  of  a  very  happy  burlesque  translation  of  the 
thirteenth  book,  added  to  the  ^Eneid  by  Maffei  Vegio1),  was 
in  the  same  condition ;  but,  some  years  after,  while  he  was  at 
Margate,  the  sight  of  his  eye  unexpectedly  returned,  and  that 
of  its  fellow  became  as  suddenly  extinguished.  Concerning  the 
particulars  of  this  singular  but  authenticated  event,  Dr.  John¬ 
son  was  studiously  inquisitive,  and  not  without  reference  to 
his  own  case.  Though  he  never  made  use  of  glasses  to  assist 
his  sight,  he  said  he  could  recollect  no  production  of  art  to 
which  man  has  superior  obligations 2.  He  mentioned  the  name 
of  the  original  inventor 3  of  spectacles  with  reverence,  and  ex¬ 
pressed  his  wonder  that  not  an  individual,  out  of  the  multitudes 
who  had  profited  by  them,  had,  through  gratitude,  written  the 
life  of  so  great  a  benefactor  to  society. 

His  knowledge  in  manufactures  was  extensive,  and  his  com¬ 
prehension  relative  to  mechanical  contrivances  was  still  more 
extraordinary4.  The  well  known  Mr.  Arkwright  pronounced 
him  to  be  the  only  person  who,  on  a  first  view,  understood  both 
the  principle  and  powers  of  his  most  complicated  piece  of 
machinery5. 


like  your  wire-drawing  mills,  if  they 
get  hold  of  a  man’s  finger  they  will 
pull  in  his  whole  body  at  last.’ 
Scrivener  he  defines  as  : — ‘  1.  One 
who  draws  contracts.  2.  One  whose 
business  is  to  place  money  at  interest.’ 

‘  The  Company  of  Scriveners,  being 
reduced  to  low  circumstances,  thought 
proper  to  sell  their  Hall  in  Noble 
Street  to  the  Coachmakers5  Com¬ 
pany.’  Dodsley’s  London,  1761,  v. 

323. 

1  Life ,  iii.  21,  n.  1. 

2  Swift  refused  to  use  them.  Post , 
P-  343  n. 

3  ‘  Some  writers  attribute  the  in¬ 
vention  to  Alexander  Spina,  a  monk 
of  Pisa,  who  died  about  1299  or 
1300  ;  but  the  invention  of  magnify¬ 
ing-glasses  by  Roger  Bacon,  who 
died  some  years  before  that  time, 
justifies  the  supposition  that  some¬ 


thing  like  what  are  now  called 
spectacles  were  in  use  at  least  several 
years  earlier.’  Penny  Cyclopaedia , 
xxii.  328.  See  also  ib.  iii.  244. 

4  ‘Dr.  Johnson  this  morning  ex¬ 

plained  to  us  ail  the  operation  of 
coining,  and,  at  night,  all  the  opera¬ 
tion  of  brewing,  so  very  clearly,  that 
Mr.  M‘Queen  said,  when  he  heard 
the  first,  he  thought  he  had  been 
bred  in  the  Mint ;  when  he  heard 
the  second,  that  he  had  been  bred 
a  brewer.’  Life,  v.  21 5.  ‘  Last  night 

he  gave  us  an  account  of  the  whole 
process  of  tanning — and  of  the  nature 
of  milk,  and  the  various  operations 
upon  it,  as  making  whey,  &c.’  Ib. 
v.  246.  See  also  ib.  v.  124  for  his  talk 
about  the  manufacture  of  gunpowder, 
p.  263  for  his  talk  about  threshing 
and  thatching,  and  ante ,  ii.  118. 

5  Johnson  was  well  acquainted  with 

Dr. 


326 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


Dr.  Johnson  delighted  in  the  company  of  women.  ‘There 
are  few  things/  he  would  say,  ‘  that  we  so  unwillingly  give  up, 
even  in  an  advanced  age,  as  the  supposition  that  we  have  still 
the  power  of  ingratiating  ourselves  with  the  Fair  Sex.’  Among 
his  singularities,  his  love  of  conversing  with  the  prostitutes 
whom  he  met  with  in  the  streets  was  not  the  least.  He  has 
been  known  to  carry  some  of  these  unfortunate  creatures  into 
a  tavern,  for  the  sake  of  striving  to  awaken  in  them  a  proper 
sense  of  their  condition.  His  younger  friends  now  and  then 
affected  to  tax  him  with  less  chastised  intentions.  But  he  would 
answer — ‘No  Sir;  we  never  proceeded  to  the  Opus  Magnum. 
On  the  contrary,  I  have  rather  been  disconcerted  and  shocked 
by  the  replies  of  these  giddy  wenches,  than  flattered  or  diverted 
by  their  tricks.  I  remember  asking  one  of  them  for  what 
purpose  she  supposed  her  Maker  had  bestowed  on  her  so  much 
beauty?  Her  answer  was — “To  please  the  gentlemen,  to  be 
sure  ;  for  what  other  use  could  it  be  given  me 1  ?  ”  ’ 

The  Doctor  is  known  to  have  been,  like  Savage,  a  very  late 
visitor 2 ;  yet  at  whatever  hour  he  returned,  he  never  went  to 
bed  without  a  previous  call  on  Mrs.  Williams,  the  blind  lady 
who  for  so  many  years  had  found  protection  under  his  roof2. 
Coming  home  one  morning  between  four  and  five,  he  said  to 
her,  ‘  Take  notice,  Madam,  that  for  once  I  am  here  before  others 
are  asleep.  As  I  returned  into  the  court,  I  ran  against  a  knot 
of  bricklayers/  ‘You  forget,  my  dear  Sir/  replied  she,  ‘that 
these  people  have  all  been  a-bed,  and  are  now  preparing  for 
their  day’s  work/  ‘  Is  it  so,  then,  Madam  ?  I  confess  that 
circumstance  had  escaped  me3/ 

‘  Garrick,  I  hear,  complains  that  I  am  the  only  popular  author 


the  spinning-machine  invented  by 
Lewis  Paul,  which  was  in  many  re¬ 
spects  imitated  by  Arkwright  in  his 
machine.  Letters ,  i.  6,  n.  3. 

1  Life,  i.  223  n. ;  iv.  321,396;  ante , 
ii.  213. 

2  Life,  i.  421. 

3  ‘The  Duke  of  Devonshire  [the 
husband  of  the  beautiful  Duchess 
whom  Reynolds  painted]  when  walk¬ 


ing  home  from  Brookes’s  about  day¬ 
break  used  frequently  to  pass  the 
stall  of  a  cobbler  who  had  already 
commenced  his  work.  As  they  were 
the  only  persons  stirring  in  that 
quarter,  they  always  saluted  each 
other.  “  Good  night ,  friend,”  said 
the  Duke.  “  Good  ?norning ,  Sir,” 
said  the  cobbler.’  Rogers’s  Table- 
Talk •,  p.  191. 


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Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


327 


of  his  time,  who  has  exhibited  no  praise  of  him  in  print 1 ;  but  he 
is  mistaken ;  Akenside  has  forborn  to  mention  him 2.  Some, 
indeed,  are  lavish  in  their  applause  of  all  who  come  within  the 
compass  of  their  recollection.  Yet  he  who  praises  everybody 
praises  nobody.  When  both  scales  are  equally  loaded,  neither 
can  preponderate3.’ 

Perhaps,  said  a  gentleman,  a  Congd  ct E lire  has  not  the  force 
of  a  positive  command,  but  implies  only  a  strong  recommenda¬ 
tion. — ‘  Yes  (replied  Johnson,  who  overheard  him),  just  such 
a  recommendation  as  if  I  should  throw  you  out  of  a  three  pair  of 
stairs  window,  and  recommend  you  to  fall  to  the  ground  V 


1  ‘  I  complained  that  he  had  not 
mentioned  Garrick  in  his  Preface  to 
Shakspeare ;  and  asked  him  if  he 
did  not  admire  him.  Johnson. 
“Yes,  as  ‘a  poor  player,  who  frets 
and  struts  his  hour  upon  the  stage  ;  5 
—as  a  shadow.”  Boswell.  “  But 
has  he  not  brought  Shakspeare  into 
notice?”  Johnson.  “Sir,  to  allow 
that,  would  be  to  lampoon  the  age.’” 
Life ,  ii.  92. 

He  did  worse  than  not  mention 
him  in  the  Preface ;  he  reflected 
upon  him,  though  not  by  name,  as 
4  a  not  very  communicative  collector 5 
of  rare  copies  of  Shakespeare.  Ib . 
ii.  192.  However  he  cited  him  in 
his  Dictionary.  Ib.  iv.  4.  In  the 
Preface  he  says  : — 4  My  purpose  was 
to  admit  no  testimony  of  living 
authors,  that  I  might  not  be  misled 
by  partiality,  and  that  none  of  my 
contemporaries  might  have  reason  to 
complain  ;  nor  have  I  departed  from 
this  resolution,  but  when  some  per¬ 
formance  of  uncommon  excellence 
excited  my  veneration,  when  my 
memory  supplied  me  from  late  books 
with  an  example  that  was  wanting, 
or  when  my  heart,  in  the  tenderness 
of  friendship,  solicited  admission  for 
a  favourite  name.’  Works ,  v.  39. 

For  his  mention  of  Garrick  in  the 


Lives  of  the  Poets .  see  Life ,  i.  81. 

2  Johnson  must  have  got  the  know¬ 
ledge  of  this  fact  second-hand,  for  he 
could  not  read  Akenside’s  Pleasures 
of  Imagination  through.  Ib.  ii.  164. 

3  4  Sur  quelque  preference  une 

estime  se  fonde, 

Et  c’est  n’estimer  rien  qu5  es- 
timer  tout  le  monde.’ 

Molkre,  Le  Misanthrope ,  i.  1. 

4  4  A  gentleman  having  said  that 
a  conge  d'elire  5  has  not,  perhaps,  the 
force  of  a  command,  but  may  be 
considered  only  as  a  strong  recom¬ 
mendation ;  “Sir,  (replied  Johnson, 
who  overheard  him,)  it  is  such  a  re¬ 
commendation,  as  if  I  should  throw 
you  out  of  a  two-pair  of  stairs  window, 
and  recommend  to  you  to  fall  soft.”  ’ 
Life ,  iv.  323. 

Boswell  says  in  a  note : — 4  This 
has  been  printed  in  other  publica¬ 
tions,  “fall  to  the  ground But 
Johnson  himself  gave  me  the  true 
expression  which  he  had  used  as 
above  ;  meaning  that  the  recommen¬ 
dation  left  as  little  choice  in  the  one 
case  as  the  other.5 

Johnson,  in  his  Dictionary ,  says 
that : — 4  Congd  d’Elire  signifies,  in 
common  law,  the  King’s  permission 
royal  to  a  dean  and  chapter,  in  time 
of  vacation,  to  choose  a  bishop.5 

The 


328 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


[The  following  anecdote  included  by  Croker  in  Steevens  s 
Collection  is  not  given  in  the  European  Magazine  for  January, 

1785]- 

‘Night,’  Mr.  Tyers  has  told  us,  ‘was  Johnson’s  time  for 
composition1.’  But  this  assertion,  if  meant  for  a  general  one, 
can  be  refuted  by  living  evidence.  Almost  the  whole  Preface  to 
Shakespeare ,  and  no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  Lives  of  the  Poets , 
were  composed  by  daylight,  and  in  a  room  where  a  friend 2  was 
employed  by  him  in  other  investigations.  His  studies  were  only 
continued  through  the  night  when  the  day  had  been  preoccupied, 


Blackstone,  after  citing  the  statute 
25  Hen.  VIII.  c.  20,  continues  : — ‘  If 
such  dean  and  chapter  do  not  elect 
in  the  manner  by  this  act  appointed 
.  .  .  they  shall  incur  all  the  penalties 
of  a  praemunire?  Commentaries ,  ed. 
I775>  i-  379- 

When,  in  1847,  the  Dean  of 
Hereford,  holding  the  opinion  of 
‘  the  gentleman  ’  of  the  anecdote,  in¬ 
formed  the  Prime-minister,  Lord 
John  Russell,  that  he  would  not 
comply  with  the  conge  d’elire  by 
electing  Dr.  Hampden,  Lord  John 
replied :  — ‘  Sir,  I  have  had  the  honour 
to  receive  your  letter  of  the  22nd 
inst.,  in  which  you  intimate  to  me 
your  intention  of  violating  the  law. 

I  have,  &c., 

J.  Russell.’ 

Walpole’s  Life  of  Lord  J.  Russell , 
i.  480. 

At  the  confirmation  of  Hampden’s 
election  in  Bow  Church,  ‘  after  the 
judge  had  told  the  opposers  that  he 
could  not  hear  them,  the  citation  for 
opposers  to  come  forward  was  re¬ 
peated,  at  which  the  people  present 
laughed  out,  as  at  a  play.’  H.  C. 
Robinson’s  Diary ,  1869,  iii.  31 1. 

‘  The  truth  of  it  is,  a  woman 
seldom  asks  advice  before  she  has 
bought  her  wedding-clothes.  When 
she  has  made  her  own  choice,  for 


form’s  sake  she  sends  a  conge  d'elire 
to  her  friends.’  Addison,  The  Spec¬ 
tator ,  No.  475. 

1  Post,  p.  346. 

2  Mr.  Croker  is  probably  right  in 
saying  that  this  friend  was  Steevens 
himself.  Nevertheless  there  is  no¬ 
thing  to  show  what  those  investiga¬ 
tions  were  in  which  he  was  engaged 
while  Johnson  was  writing  the  Preface 
to  Shakespeare.  In  1766,  the  year 
after  it  was  published,  Steevens 
brought  out  twenty  plays  of  Shake¬ 
speare  in  four  volumes.  ‘  A  coalition 
having  been  effected  between  him 
and  Johnson,  another  edition  made 
its  appearance  in  1773.’  Nichols, 
Lit.  Hist.  v.  428.  A  second  of  these 
joint  editions  was  published  in  1778, 
and  a  third  in  1785.  Lowndes,  Bibl. 
Man.  p.  2270.  That  in  preparing 
his  notes  for  all  three  editions  he 
often  worked  in  Johnson’s  room  is 
very  likely.  He  lived  at  the  top  of 
Hampstead  Heath,  in  a  house  still 
standing.  ‘He  was  always  an  early 
riser,  and  rarely  failed  walking  to 
London  and  back.’  His  custom  was 
to  call  at  Isaac  Reed’s  in  Staple  Inn 
by  7  o’clock  in  the  morning,  where 
he  found  a  room  ready.  Later  on  in 
the  day  ‘  he  generally  passed  some 
time  with  Dr.  Johnson.’  When 
carrying  his  last  edition  through  the 


or 


Anecdotes  by  George  Steevens. 


329 


or  proved  too  short  for  his  undertakings.  Respecting  the  fertility 
of  his  genius,  the  resources  of  his  learning,  and  the  accuracy  of 
his  judgment,  the  darkness  and  the  light  were  both  alike  \ 

press,  during  eighteen  months  he  left  Frank,  ‘took  bribes  for  denying  his 
his  house  at  one  in  the  night  with  master  to  others,  when  Mr.  Steevens 
the  Hampstead  patrole.  Nichols,  wanted  his  assistance  in  his  Shake- 
Lit.  Hist.  v.  427.  spearel 

Miss  Hawkins  ( Memoirs ,  i.  153)  1  ‘  The  darkness  and  light  to  thee 

says  that  Johnson’s  man-servant,  are  both  alike.’  Psalms,  cxxxix.  11. 


ANECDOTES 

BY  THE  REV.  PERCIVAL  STOCKDALE 


-M- 


[From  Memoirs  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  Per cival  Stockdale. 
2  vols.  8vo,  1809,  (vol.  ii.  pp.  44,  59,  64,  185,  189).  For  a  brief 
account  of  Stockdale  see  Life ,  ii.  113. 

In  1776  Garrick  wrote  to  Lord  Sandwich,  the  first  Lord  of  the 
Admiralty,  to  ask  for  leave  of  absence  for  Stockdale,  who  was 
a  sea-chaplain.  Sandwich  replied  : — £  I  fear  the  attending  in 
London  upon  a  literary  business  and  the  duty  of  a  sea- chaplain 
are  incompatible.  ...  If  a  fortnight’s  leave  of  absence  would 
enable  him  to  finish  his  pamphlet,  I  could  strain  a  point  to 
make  it  easy  to  him.’  Garrick  thanked  him  for  having  ‘  bestowed 
a  great  favour  upon  a  man  of  letters  and  talents  when  he  most 
wanted  it.’  Garrick  Corres.  ii.  173.] 


About  the  year  1770,  I  was  invited  by  the  lively  and  hos¬ 
pitable  Tom  Davies  to  dine  with  him,  to  meet  some  interesting 
characters.  Dr.  Johnson  was  of  the  party,  and  this  was  my  first 
introduction  to  him  :  there  were  others,  with  whom  every 
intelligent  mind  would  have  wished  to  converse, — Dr.  Goldsmith 
and  Mr.  Meyer,  the  elegant  miniature  painter  \  Swift  was  one 
of  our  convivial  subjects  ;  of  whom  it  was  Dr.  Johnson’s  invariable 

1  Jeremiah  Meyer.  It  was  at  the  of  his  presidency  and  his  seat  as  an 
election  of  his  successor  as  a  Royal  Academician.  Leslie  and  Taylor’s 
Academician  that  the  dispute  arose  Reynolds ,  ii.  570. 
which  led  to  Reynolds’s  resignation 


custom 


Anecdotes  by  the  Rev.  Percival  Stockdale.  331 


custom  to  speak  in  a  disparaging  and  most  unworthy  manner  \ 
We  gave  our  sentiments,  and  undoubtedly  of  high  panegyric, 
on  the  Tale  of  a  Tub',  of  which  Dr.  Johnson  insisted,  in  his  usual 
positive  manner,  that  it  was  impossible  that  Swift  should  have 
been  the  author,  it  was  so  eminently  superior  to  all  his  other 
works1 2 3.  I  expressed  my  own  conviction,  that  it  was  written 
by  Swift,  and  that,  in  many  of  his  productions,  he  showed 
a  genius  not  unequal  to  the  composition  of  the  Tale  of  a  Tub. 
The  Doctor  desired  me  to  name  one.  I  replied,  that  I  thought 
Gullivei's  Travels 3  not  unworthy  of  the  performance  he  so  ex¬ 
clusively  admired.  He  would  not  admit  the  instance  ;  but  said, 
that  c  if  Swift  was  really  the  author  of  the  Tale  of  a  Tub ,  as  the 
best  of  his  other  performances  were  of  a  very  inferior  merit, 
he  should  have  hanged  himself  after  he  had  written  it.’ 

Johnson  said  on  the  same  day,  ‘Swift  corresponded  minutely 
with  Stella  and  Mrs.  Dingley4,  on  his  importance  with  the 
ministry,  from  excessive  vanity — that  the  women  might  exclaim, 
“  What  a  great  man  Dr.  Swift  is  !  ”  ’ 

Among  other  topics,  Warburton  claimed  our  attention.  Gold¬ 
smith  took  a  part  against  Warburton  whom  Johnson  strenuously 
defended,  and,  indeed,  with  many  strong  arguments,  and  with 
bright  sallies  of  eloquence5.  Goldsmith  ridiculously  asserted, 
that  Warburton  was  a  weak  writer.  This  misapplied  character¬ 
istic  Dr.  Johnson  refuted.  I  shall  never  forget  one  of  the  happy 
metaphors  with  which  he  strengthened  and  illustrated  his  refuta¬ 
tion.  *  Warburton/  said  he,  ‘  may  be  absurd,  but  he  will  never 
be  weak :  he  flounders  well.' 

1  Ante ,  i.  373,  479;  ii.  21 1. 

2  lb.  i.452;  ii.  318;  v.  44;  Works , 
viii.  197. 

3  Life ,  ii.  319.  In  his  Life  of  Gay 
Johnson  says  of  that  writer’s  ‘little 
poems  ’ : — ‘  Those  that  please  least 
are  the  pieces  to  which  Gulliver 
gave  occasion ;  for  who  can  much 
delight  in  the  echo  of  an  unnatural 
fiction  ?’  Works,  viii.  71. 

4  Life,  iv.  177. 


5  Johnson  said  : — ‘  I  treated  War¬ 
burton  with  great  respect  both  in  my 
Preface  and  in  my  Notes  ’  to  Shake¬ 
speare.  Ib.  iv.  2 88.  The  notes  are 
often  contemptuous  and  sarcastic : 
‘  I  am  well  informed  (writes  Bos¬ 
well)  that  Warburton  said  of  John¬ 
son,  “  I  admire  him,  but  cannot  bear 
his  style;”  and  that  Johnson  being 
told  of  this  said,  “  That  is  exactly 
my  case  as  to  him.”  ’  Ib.  iv.  48. 

Lord 


332  Anecdotes  by  the  Rev .  Percival  Stockdale. 


Lord  Lyttelton  told  me,  that  on  a  visit  to  Mr.  Pope,  while  he 
was  translating  the  Iliad ,  he  took  the  liberty  to  express  to  that 
great  poet  his  surprise,  that  he  had  not  determined  to  translate 
Homer’s  poem  into  blank  verse  ;  as  it  was  an  epic  poem,  and  as 
he  had  before  him  the  illustrious  example  of  Milton,  in  the 
Paradise  Lost.  Mr.  Pope’s  answer  to  Lord  Lyttelton  was,  that 
‘  he  could  translate  it  more  easily  into  rhyme.’  I  communicated 
this  anecdote  to  Dr.  Johnson;  his  remark  on  it  to  me  was, 
very  erroneous  in  criticism, — ‘  Sir,  when  Pope  said  that,  he  knew 
that  he  lied  V 

When  Dr.  Johnson  and  I  were  talking  of  Garrick,  I  observed 
that  he  was  a  very  moderate,  fair,  and  pleasing  companion  ;  when 
we  considered  what  a  constant  influx  had  flowed  upon  him,  both 
of  fortune  and  fame,  to  throw  him  off  of  his  bias  of  moral  and  social 
self-government.  ‘  Sir,’  replied  Johnson,  in  his  usual  emphatical 
and  glowing  manner,  ‘  you  are  very  right  in  your  remark ; 
Garrick  has  undoubtedly  the  merit  of  a  temperate  and  unas¬ 
suming  behaviour  in  society ;  for  more  pains  have  been  taken 
to  spoil  that  fellow,  than  if  he  had  been  heir  apparent  to  the 
empire  of  India2 !  ’ 

When  Garrick  was  one  day  mentioning  to  me  Dr.  Johnson’s 
illiberal  treatment  of  him,  on  different  occasions ;  ‘  I  question,’ 
said  he, c  whether,  in  his  calmest  and  most  dispassionate  moments, 
he  would  allow  me  the  high  theatrical  merit  which  the  public 
have  been  so  generous  as  to  attribute  to  me.’  I  told  him,  that 
I  would  take  an  early  opportunity  to  make  the  trial,  and  that 
I  would  not  fail  to  inform  him  of  the  result  of  my  experiment. 
As  I  had  rather  an  active  curiosity  to  put  Johnson’s  disinterested 
generosity  fairly  to  the  test,  on  this  apposite  subject,  I  took  an 
early  opportunity  of  waiting  on  him,  to  hear  his  verdict  on 
Garrick’s  pretensions  to  his  great  and  universal  fame.  I  found 
him  in  very  good  and  social  humour ;  and  I  began  a  conversa¬ 
tion  which  naturally  led  to  the  mention  of  Garrick.  I  said 
something  particular  on  his  excellence  as  an  actor ;  and  I  added, 

1  For  Johnson’s  expression  ‘he  verse  see  ib.  iv.  42. 
lies  and  he  knows  he  lies,’  see  Life ,  2  Ib.  iii.  263  ;  ante ,  ii.  244. 

iv.  49,  and  for  his  opinion  of  blank 


‘But 


Anecdotes  by  the  Rev.  Percival  Stockdale.  333 


‘But  pray,  Dr.  Johnson,  do  you  really  think  that  he  deserves 
that  illustrious  theatrical  character,  and  that  prodigious  fame, 
which  he  has  acquired  ?  ’  £  Oh,  Sir,’  said  he,  ‘  he  deserves  every 

thing  that  he  has  acquired,  for  having  seized  the  very  soul  of 
Shakspeare ;  for  having  embodied  it  in  himself ;  and  for  having 
expanded  its  glory  over  the  world1.’  I  was  not  slow  in  com¬ 
municating  to  Garrick  the  answer  of  the  Delphic  oracle.  The 
tear  started  in  his  eye — £  Oh  !  Stockdale,’  said  he,  £  such  a  praise 
from  such  a  man ! — this  atones  for  all  that  has  passed.’ 

I  called  on  Dr.  Johnson  one  morning,  when  Mrs.  Williams, 
the  blind  lady,  was  conversing  with  him.  She  was  telling  him 
where  she  had  dined  the  day  before.  £  There  were  several 
gentlemen  there,’  said  she,  £  and  when  some  of  them  came  to  the 
tea-table,  I  found  that  there  had  been  a  good  deal  of  hard 
drinking.’  She  closed  this  observation  with  a  common  and  trite 
moral  reflection  ;  which,  indeed,  is  very  ill-founded,  and  does 
great  injustice  to  animals — £  I  wonder  what  pleasure  men  can 
take  in  making  beasts  of  themselves !  ’  £  I  wonder,  Madam,’ 

replied  the  Doctor,  ‘that  you  have  not  penetration  enough  to  see 
the  strong  inducement  to  this  excess ;  for  he  who  makes  a  beast 
of  himself  gets  rid  of  the  pain  of  being  a  man2.’ 

Mrs.  Bruce,  an  old  Scotch  lady,  the  widow  of  Captain  Bruce, 
who  had  been  for  many  years  an  officer  in  the  Russian  service, 
drank  tea  with  me  one  afternoon  at  my  lodgings  in  Bolt  Court, 
when  Johnson  was  one  of  the  company.  She  spoke  very  broad 
Scotch ;  and  this  alarmed  me  for  her  present  social  situation. 
As  we  were  conversing  on  a  subject  in  which  we  were  interested, 
she  interrupted  us  by  saying  that  we  should  give  Dr.  Johnson  an 
opportunity  of  favouring  the  company  with  his  sentiments.  By 
this  absurd  interruption  the  Doctor  was  naturally  far  less  com¬ 
municative.  That  undaunted  dame  was,  however,  determined  to 


1  ‘  Boswell.  “  But  has  not  Gar¬ 
rick  brought  Shakespeare  into 
notice?”  JOHNSON.  “Sir,  to  allow 
that  would  be  to  lampoon  the  age.”  ’ 
Life ,  ii.  92. 

2  Johnson,  in  his  Life  of  Somer- 


vile ,  quotes  the  following  passage 
from  one  of  Shenstone’s  letters  : — • 
‘  For  a  man  of  high  spirits  ...  to  be 
forced  to  drink  himself  into  pains  of 
the  body  in  order  to  get  rid  of  the 
pains  of  the  mind  is  a  misery.’ 

make 


334  Anecdotes  by  the  Rev .  Percival  Stockdale . 


make  him  speak  if  it  was  possible.  ‘  Dr.  J ohnson,’  said  she,  ‘  you  tell 
us,  in  your  Dictionary,  that  in  England  oats  are  given  to  horses ; 
but  that  in  Scotland  they  support  the  people1.  Now,  Sir,  I  can 
assure  you,  that  in  Scotland  we  give  oats  to  our  horses,  as  well 
as  you  do  to  yours  in  England.’  I  almost  trembled  for  the 
widow  of  the  Russian  hero ;  I  never  saw  a  more  contemptuous 
leer  than  that  which  Johnson  threw  at  Mrs.  Bruce:  however,  he 
deigned  her  an  answer, — ‘  I  am  very  glad,  Madam,  to  find  that 
you  treat  your  horses  as  well  as  you  treat  yourselves.’  I  was 
delivered  from  my  panic,  and  I  wondered  that  she  was  so  gently 
set  down. 

Soon  after  I  had  entered  on  my  charge  as  domestic  tutor  to 
my  Lord  Craven’s  son  I  called  on  Dr.  Johnson.  ‘Well  (said  he) 
how  do  you  like  your  place  ?  ’  On  my  hesitating  to  answer,  or 
on  my  answer  which  expressed  not  much  love  of  my  situation, 
he  added  the  following  words  of  consolation:  ‘You  must  expect 
insolence.’ 

1  ‘  Oats.  A  grain  which  in  Eng-  to  men  and  horses.’  C.  W.  Boase’s 
land  is  generally  given  to  horses,  Oxford ,  p.  65. 

but  in  Scotland  supports  the  people.’  Hector  told  Boswell  that  Johnson, 

‘The  sarcastic  Jew  in  Richard  of  in  his  boyhood,  ‘used  to  have  oat- 
Devizes’  History  of  Richard  I  says  meal  porridge  for  breakfast.’  Mor- 
Oxford  barely  keeps  its  clerks  from  rison  Autographs ,  2nd  series, 3  i. 
starving,  Exeter  gives  the  same  grain  368. 


A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF 
DR.  SAMUEL  JOHNSON 

BY  THOMAS  TYERS 1 


When  Charles  the  Second  was  informed  of  the  death  of 
Cowley,  he  pronounced,  ‘  that  he  had  not  left  a  better  man 
behind  him  in  England  2.’  It  may  be  affirmed  with  truth,  that 
this  was  the  case  when  Dr.  Johnson  breathed  his  last.  Those 
who  observed  his  declining  state  of  health  during  the  last  winter, 
and  heard  his  complaints,  of  painful  days  and  sleepless  nights, 
for  which  he  took  large  quantities  of  opium  3,  had  no  reason  to 
expect  that  he  could  survive  another  season  of.  frost  and  snow. 


1  F  rom  the  Gentleman' s  Magazine , 
December,  1784.  ‘  The  gentleman 

whom  he  thus  familiarly  mentioned 
[as  Tom  Tyers]  was  Mr.  Thomas 
Tyers,  son  of  Mr.  Jonathan  Tyers, 
the  founder  of  that  excellent  place  of 
publick  amusement,  Vauxhall  Gar¬ 
dens.  Mr.  Thomas  Tyers  was  bred  to 
the  law  ;  but  having  a  handsome  for¬ 
tune,  vivacity  of  temper,  and  eccen¬ 
tricity  of  mind,  he  could  not  confine 
himself  to  the  regularity  of  practice. 
He  therefore  ran  about  the  world 
with  a  pleasant  carelessness,  amusing 
everybody  by  his  desultory  conver¬ 
sation.  He  abounded  in  anecdote, 
but  was  not  sufficiently  attentive  to 


accuracy.  I  therefore  cannot  ven¬ 
ture  to  avail  myself  much  of  a  bio¬ 
graphical  sketch  of  Johnson  which 
he  published,  being  one  among  the 
various  persons  ambitious  of  append¬ 
ing  their  names  to  that  of  my  illus¬ 
trious  friend.  That  sketch  is,  how¬ 
ever,  an  entertaining  little  collection 
of  fragments.’  Life ,  iii.  308. 

2  Works ,  vii.  14. 

3  ‘  I  have  such  horrour  of  opiates,’ 
he  wrote,  ‘that  I  do  not  think  of 
them  but  in  extremist  Letters ,  ii. 
367.  See  also  ib.  pp.  376,  383.  Dr. 
Brocklesby  noticed  that  ‘  opiate  was 
never  destructive  of  his  readiness  in 
conversation.’  Ib.  ii.  437. 


His 


336  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


His  constitution  was  totally  broken,  and  no  art  of  the  physician 
or  surgeon  could  protract  his  existence  beyond  the  13th  of 
December.  When  he  was  opened,  one  of  his  kidneys  was  found 
decayed.  He  never  complained  of  disorder  in  that  region ;  and 
probably  it  was  not  the  immediate  cause  of  his  dissolution.  It 
might  be  thought  that  so  strong  and  muscular  a  body  might 
have  lasted  many  years  longer.  For  Johnson  drank  nothing 
but  water,  and  lemonade  (by  way  of  indulgence),  for  many 
years,  almost  uninterruptedly,  without  the  taste  of  any  fermented 
liquor  :  and  he  was  often  abstinent  from  animal  food x,  and  kept 
down  feverish  symptoms  by  dietetic  management.  Of  Addison 
and  Pope  he  used  to  observe,  perhaps  to  remind  himself,  that 
they  ate  and  drank  too  much,  and  thus  shortened  their  days1  2. 
It  was  thought  by  many,  who  dined  at  the  same  table,  that  he 
had  too  great  an  appetite  3.  This  might  now  and  then  be  the 
case,  but  not  till  he  had  subdued  his  enemy  by  famine.  But  his 
bulk  seemed  to  require  now  and  then  to  be  repaired  by  kitchen 
physic.  To  great  old  age  not  one  in  a  thousand  arrives.  How 
few  were  the  years  of  Johnson  in  comparison  of  those  of  Jenkins 
and  Parr4!  But  perhaps  Johnson  had  more  of  life,  by  his 
intenseness  of  living.  Most  people  die  of  disease.  He  was  all 
his  life  preparing  himself  for  death :  but  particularly  in  the  last 
stage  of  his  asthma  and  dropsy.  c  Take  care  of  your  soul — don’t 
live  such  a  life  as  I  have  done — don’t  let  your  business  or  dissi¬ 
pation  make  you  neglect  your  sabbath  ’ — were  now  his  constant 
inculcations 5.  Private  and  publick  prayer,  when  his  visitors 
were  his  audience,  were  his  constant  exercises.  He  cannot  be 
said  to  have  been  weary  of  the  weight  of  existence,  for  he 


1  On  July  10,  1780,  he  wrote  to 
Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘  Last  week  I  saw 
flesh  but  twice,  and  I  think  fish  once, 
the  rest  was  pease.’  Letters ,  ii.  184. 
See  ib.  ii.  143. 

2  ‘From  the  coffee-house  Addison 

went  again  to  a  tavern,  where  he 

often  sat  late,  and  drank  too  much 
wine.’  Works,  vii.  449.  ‘  The  death 

of  great  men  is  not  always  propor¬ 
tioned  to  the  lustre  of  their  lives.  .  .  . 


The  death  of  Pope  was  imputed  by 
some  of  his  friends  to  a  silver  sauce¬ 
pan,  it  which  it  was  his  delight  to 
heat  potted  lampreys.’  Ib.  viii.  310. 

3  Life ,  iv.  330. 

4  It  was  confidently  asserted  that 
Henry  Jenkins  was  born  in  1501  and 
died  in  1670  and  that  Thomas  Parr 
was  born  in  1483  and  died  in  1635. 

5  Life ,  iv.  410,  413-14,  416  ;  ante , 
ii.  157. 


declared 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


337 


declared,  that  to  prolong  it  only  for  one  year,  but  not  for  the 
comfortless  sensations  he  had  lately  felt,  he  would  suffer  the 
amputation  of  a  limb  *.  He  was  willing  to  endure  positive  pain 
for  possible  pleasure.  But  he  had  no  expectation  that  nature 
could  last  much  longer.  And  therefore,  for  his  last  week,  he 
undoubtedly  abandoned  every  hope  of  his  recovery  or  duration, 
and  committed  his  soul  to  God.  Whether  he  felt  the  instant 
stroke  of  death,  and  met  the  king  of  terrors  face  to  face,  cannot 
be  known  :  for  ‘  death  and  the  sun  cannot  be  looked  upon,’  says 
Rochefoucault1  2.  But  the  writer  of  this  has  reason  to  imagine 
that  when  he  thought  he  had  made  his  peace  with  his  Maker,  he 
had  nothing  to  fear3.  He  has  talked  of  submitting  to  a  violent 
death,  in  a  good  cause,  without  apprehensions.  On  one  of  the 
last  visits  from  his  surgeon,  who  on  performing  the  puncture  on 
his  legs,  had  assured  him  that  he  was  better,  he  declared,  ‘  he 
felt  himself  not  so,  and  that  he  did  not  desire  to  be  treated  like 
a  woman  or  a  child,  for  that  he  had  made  up  his  mind4.’  He 
had  travelled  through  the  vale  of  this  world  for  more  than 
seventy-five  years.  It  probably  was  a  wilderness  to  him  for 
more  than  half  his  time.  But  he  was  in  the  possession  of  rest 
and  comfort  and  plenty,  for  the  last  twenty  years5.  Yet  the 
blessings  of  fortune  and  reputation  could  not  compensate  to  him 
the  want  of  health,  which  pursued  him  through  his  pilgrimage 
on  earth.  Post  equitem  sedet  air  a  cur  a, 

‘For  when  we  mount  the  flying  steed, 

Sits  gloomy  Care  behind6.’ 


1  Life ,  iv.  409  ;  ante ,  ii.  132. 

2  ‘  Le  soleil  ni  la  mort  ne  se  peu- 
vent  regarder  fixement.’  Maximes , 
xxvi. 

3  Ante ,  ii.  203. 

4  ‘I  deny  (said  Johnson)  the  law¬ 
fulness  of  telling  a  lie  to  a  sick  man 
for  fear  of  alarming  him.  You  have 
no  business  with  consequences  ;  you 
are  to  tell  the  truth.  Besides,  you 
are  not  sure  what  effect  your  telling 
him  that  he  is  in  danger  may  have. 

It  may  bring  his  distemper  to  a 
crisis,  and  that  may  cure  him.  Of 
all  lying,  I  have  the  greatest  abhor- 

VOL.  II. 


rence  of  this,  because  I  believe  it  has 
been  frequently  practised  on  myself.’ 
Life ,  iv.  306. 

5  It  was  in  1762  that  his  pension 
was  given  him,  and  in  1765  that  his 
friendship  with  the  Thrales  began. 
His  ‘  rest  and  comfort  ’  were  greatly 
marred  by  Mr.  Thrale’s  death  in 
1781,  and  by  the  estrangement  from 
Mrs.  Thrale  which  soon  followed. 
His  feeling  of  solitude  was  increased 
by  the  death  of  Levett  in  1782,  and 
of  Miss  Williams  in  1783. 

6  ‘And  when  he  mounts,’  &c. 
Francis.  Horace,  Odes,  iii.  1,  36. 

Of 


z 


338  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Of  the  hundred  sublunary  things  bestowed  on  mortals,  health  is 
ninety-nine.  He  was  born  with  a  scrophulous  habit,  for  which  he 
was  touched,  as  he  acknowledged,  by  good  Queen  Anne,  whose 
piece  of  gold  he  carefully  preserved  h  But  even  a  Stuart  could 
not  expel  that  enemy  to  his  frame,  by  a  touch.  For  it  would 
have  been  even  beyond  the  stroking  power  of  Greatrix  in  all  his 
glory,  to  charm  it  away  2.  Though  he  seemed  to  be  athletic  as 
Milo  himself,  and  in  his  younger  days  performed  several  feats  of 
activity,  he  was  to  the  last  a  convttlsionary* .  He  has  often  stept 
aside,  to  let  nature  do  what  she  would  with  him.  His  gestures, 
which  were  a  degree  of  St.  Vitus’s  dance,  in  the  street,  attracted 
the  notice  of  many :  the  stare  of  the  vulgar,  but  the  compassion 
of  the  better  sort.  This  writer  has  often  looked  another  way,  as 
the  companions  of  Peter  the  Great  were  used  to  do,  while  he 
was  under  the  short  paroxysm 4.  He  was  perpetually  taking 
opening  medicines 5.  He  could  only  keep  his  ailments  from 
gaining  ground.  He  thought  he  was  worse  for  the  agitation  of 
active  exercise 6.  He  was  afraid  of  his  disorders  seizing  his  head, 


1  ‘  She  hung  about  his  neck  the 
usual  amulet  of  an  angel  of  gold, 
with  the  impress  of  St.  Michael  the 
archangel  on  one  side  and  a  ship 
under  full  sail  on  the  other.’  Haw¬ 
kins,  p.  4  ;  ante.  i.  133. 

2  ‘  Mr.  Gretrakes  is  said  to  have 
cured  pains  and  diseases  only  by 
touching;  and  the  excellent  Dr.  H. 
More,  who  gives  a  particular  account 
of  him,  attributes  his  great  success 
to  a  certain  sanative  virtue  in  his 
hand  ;  and  supposes  it  might  be  con¬ 
ferred  upon  him  as  a  distinguishing 
grace  on  account  of  the  regenerate 
and  confirmed  state  of  piety  which 
he  seemed  to  be  in.’  Gentleman' s 
Magazine,  1748,  p.  449. 

See  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.  under  Great- 
rakes,  Valentine. 

3  Convulsionaiy  is  not  in  John¬ 
son’s  Dictionary.  The  only  instance 
Dr.  Murray  gives  of  its  use  is  as  a 
translation  of  convulsionnaire — ‘  one 
of  a  number  of  fanatics  in  France  in 


the  eighteenth  century,  who  fell  into 
convulsions  and  extravagances,  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  accompanied  by  miracu¬ 
lous  cures,’  &c.  All  that  Tyers 
meant  was  that  Johnson  was  subject 
to  those  ‘  motions  or  tricks  ’  which 
Reynolds  said  were  in  his  case  ‘  im¬ 
properly  called  convulsions.’  Ante , 
ii.  222,  273. 

4  £  The  Czar  while  young,  and  even 
until  his  death,  was  subject  to  fre¬ 
quent  fits  of  a  violent  spasm  of  the 
brain.  It  was  a  kind  of  convulsion 
which  threw  him  sometimes  for  whole 
hours  into  so  dreadful  a  situation 
that  he  could  not  bear  the  presence 
of  any  person,  not  even  of  his  best 
friends.’  Original  Anecdotes  of  Peter 
the  Great ,  London,  1788,  p.  109. 

5  Letters ,  ii.  101. 

6  Probably  this  was  only  towards 
the  close  of  his  life  when  he  was  dis¬ 
tressed  with  asthma.  For  his  re¬ 
commendation  of  exercise  see  Life ,  i. 
446 ;  iv.  150,  n.  2  ;  Letters ,  ii.  99. 

and 


X. 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


339 


and  took  all  possible  care  that  his  understanding  should  not  be 
deranged x.  Orandum  est,  ut  sit  mens  sana  in  corpore  sano1  2. 
When  his  knowledge  from  books,  and  he  knew  all  that  books 
could  tell  him  3,  is  considered ;  when  his  compositions  in  verse 
and  prose  are  enumerated  to  the  reader  (and  a  complete  list  of 
them  wherever  dispersed  is  desirable 4)  it  must  appear  extra¬ 
ordinary  he  could  abstract  himself  so  much  from  his  feelings, 
and  that  he  could  pursue  with  ardour  the  plan  he  laid  down  of 
establishing  a  great  reputation.  Accumulating  learning  (and  the 
example  of  Barretier,  whose  life  he  wrote 5)  shewed  him  how  to 
arrive  at  all  science.  His  imagination  often  appeared  to  be  too 
mighty  for  the  control  of  his  reason.  In  the  preface  to  his 
Dictionary,  he  says,  that  his  work  was  composed  ‘  amidst  incon¬ 
venience  and  distraction,  in  sickness  and  in  sorrow.’  ‘  I  never 
read  this  preface,’  says  Mr.  Horne 6,  ‘  but  it  makes  me  shed 
tears/ 

If  this  memoir-writer  possessed  the  pen  of  a  Plutarch,  and  the 
subject  is  worthy  of  that  great  biographer,  he  would  begin  his 
account  from  his  youth,  and  continue  it  to  the  last  period  of  his 
life,  in  the  due  order  of  an  historian.  What  he  knows  and  can 
recollect,  he  will  perform.  His  father  (called  *  gentleman  ’ 7  in 
the  parish  register)  he  says  himself,  and  it  is  also  within  memory, 
was  an  old  bookseller  at  Lichfield,  and  a  whig  in  principle  8. 
The  father  of  Socrates  was  not  of  higher  extraction,  nor  of  a  more 
honourable  profession.  Our  author  was  born  in  that  city ;  and 
the  house  of  his  birth  was  a  few  months  ago  visited  by  a  learned 


1  Life ,  i.  64;  v.  215  ;  a?ite ,  i.  199, 
472;  ii.  322. 

2  Juvenal,  Satires ,  x.  356;  IJfe,  iv. 

401. 

3  Ante ,  ii.  214  n. 

4  Ante,  i.  304  n. ;  Life ,  i.  16,  1 12. 

5  Life,  i.  148  ;  Works ,  vi.  376. 

6  Better  known  as  Horne  Tooke. 
Life,  i.  297,  n.  2  ;  ante,  i.  405  n. 

7  ‘  His  father  is  there  stiled  Gen¬ 
tleman,  a  circumstance  of  which  an 
ignorant  panegyrist  has  praised  him 
for  not  being  proud  ;  when  the  truth 

is,  that  the  appellation  of  Gentleman, 


though  now  lost  in  the  indiscriminate 
assumption  of  Esquire,  was  commonly 
taken  by  those  who  could  not  boast 
of  gentility.’  Life,  i.  34. 

8  ‘  He  was  a  zealous  high-church 
man  and  royalist,  and  retained  his 
attachment  to  the  unfortunate  house 
of  Stuart,  though  he  reconciled  him¬ 
self  by  casuistical  arguments  of  ex¬ 
pediency  and  necessity  to  take  the 
oaths  imposed  by  the  prevailing 
power.’  Jb.  i.  36.  For  Johnson’s 
defence  of  a  Jacobite’s  taking  the 
oaths  see  ib.  ii.  322. 


acquaintance 


340  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


acquaintance,  the  information  of  which  was  grateful  to  the 
Doctor.  It  may  probably  be  engraved  for  some  monthly  re¬ 
pository  b  The  print  and  the  original  dwelling  may  become  as 
eminent  as  the  mansion  of  Shakspeare  at  Stratford,  or  of 
Erasmus  at  Rotterdam.  He  certainly  must  have  had  a  good 
school  education.  He  was  entered  of  Pembroke  College,  Oxford, 
Oct.  31,  1728,  and  continued  there  for  several  terms.  By  whose 
bounty  he  was  supported,  may  be  known  to  enquiry 1  2.  While 
he  was  there,  he  was  negligent  of  the  College  rules  and  hours, 
and  absented  himself  from  some  of  the  lectures,  for  which  when 
he  was  reprimanded  and  interrogated,  he  replied  with  great 
rudeness  and  contempt  of  the  lecturer  3.  Indeed  he  displayed 
an  overbearing  disposition  that  would  not  brook  control,  and 
shewed  that,  like  Caesar,  he  was  fitter  to  command  than  to  obey. 
This  dictatorial  spirit  was  the  leading  feature  in  his  deportment 
to  his  contemporaries.  His  college  themes  and  declamations  are 
still  remembered  ;  and  his  elegant  translation  of  Pope’s  Messiah 
into  Latin  verse  found  its  way  into  a  volume  of  poems  published 
by  one  Husbands4.  In  1735,  after  having  been  some  time  an 
usher  to  Anthony  Blackwall 5,  his  friends  assisted  him  to  set  up 
an  academy  near  Lichfield  6.  Here  he  formed  an  acquaintance 
with  the  late  Bishop  Green,  then  an  usher  at  Lichfield  7,  and 


1  In  the  Ge7itlemari s  Magazine 
for  February,  1785,  a  view  was  given 
of  Johnson’s  birthplace. 

2  Life,  i.  58  ;  ante ,  i.  362. 

3  Ante ,  i.  164. 

4  Fellow  of  Pembroke  College. 
Life ,  i.  61, 7t.  3.  See  ante ,  i.  459. 

5  Boswell  denies  the  truth  of  this 

statement,  on  the  ground  that ‘  Black- 

wall  died  on  April  8,  1730,  more  than 
a  year  before  Johnson  left  the  Uni¬ 
versity.’  As  Johnson  left  it  in 
December,  1729,  the  proof  is  value¬ 
less.  Life ,  i.  78,  71.  2,  84.  Dr.Westby- 
Gibson,  in  his  article  on  Blackwall 
in  the  Diet.  Nat.  Biog.,  argues 
in  favour  of  the  statement,  and 
says,  ‘We  may  conclude  Johnson 
taught  in  the  school  for  two  years 


and  a  half.’  That  he  left  it  a  few 
days  before  July  27,  1732,  we  know 
from  a  letter  Malone  had  seen.  Life , 
i.  85,  n.  I.  Hawkins  (p.  20)  says 
that  it  was  in  March,  1732,  that  he 
went  to  the  school.  The  entry  in 
his  Diary  ‘ Julii  16  [1732]  Bosvor- 
tia77i  pedes  petii ’  probably,  as  Dr. 
Westby-Gibson  says,  refers  to  his 
return  after  the  summer  vacation. 
That  he  was  not  there  on  Oct.  30, 
1731,  is  shown  by  a  letter  written 
from  Lichfield  on  that  day,  in  which 
he  says,  ‘  I  am  yet  unemployed.’ 
Letters ,  i.  I. 

6  It  was  most  likely  with  his  wife’s 
money  that  he  set  up  his  academy. 
Ante ,  i.  367 ;  Life ,  i.  95,  n.  3. 

7  Life ,  i.  45. 


with 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


34i 


with  Mr.  Hawkins  Browne  L  As  the  school  probably  did  not 
answer  his  expectation  (for  who  does  not  grow  tired  of  teaching 
others,  especially  if  he  wants  to  teach  himself?),  he  resolved  to 
come  up  to  London,  where  everything  is  to  be  had  for  wit  and 
for  money  (Romce  omnia  venalia :),  and  to  seek  his  fortune.  He 
was  accompanied  by  his  pupil  Mr.  Garrick  :  and  travelled  on 
horseback  to  the  metropolis  in  March,  1737 1  2. 

The  time  and  business  of  this  journey  are  before  the  public  in 
some  letters  from  Mr.  Walmsley,  who  recommends  Johnson  as 
a  writer  of  tragedy ;  as  a  translator  from  the  French  language  ; 
and  as  a  good  scholar3.  He  brought  with  him  his  tragedy  of 
Irene ,  which  afterwards  took  its  chance  on  Drury-Lane  theatre4. 
Luckily  he  did  not  throw  it  into  the  fire,  by  design  or  otherwise, 
as  Parson  Adams  did  his  Aischylns  by  mistake5.  He  offered 
himself  for  the  service  of  the  booksellers  ;  ‘  for  he  was  born  for 
nothing  but  to  write 6,’ — 

1  And  from  the  jest  obscene  reclaim  our  youth, 

And  set  our  passions  on  the  side  of  truth7.’ 

The  hurry  of  this  pen  prevents  the  recollection  of  his  first  per¬ 
formances.  But  he  used  to  call  Dodsley  his  patron  8,  because  he 
made  him,  if  not  first,  yet  best  known  by  printing  and  publishing, 
upon  his  own  judgment,  his  .Satire,  called  London** ,  which  was 
an  imitation  of  one  of  Juvenal,  whose  gravity  and  severity  of 
expression  he  possessed.  He  there  and  then  discovered  how 
able  he  was  ‘  to  catch  the  manners  living  as  they  rise  io.  The 


1  Ante,  i.  266  ;  Life ,  ii.  339. 

2  ‘  Both  of  them  used  to  talk 
pleasantly  of  this  their  first  journey 
to  London.  Garrick,  evidently  mean¬ 
ing  to  embellish  a  little,  said  one 
day  in  my  hearing,  “we  rode  and 
tied.”’  Life,  i.  101,  n.  1. 

3  Ante,  i.  368  ;  Life,  i.  102. 

4  He  had  written  only  three  acts 
of  Irene  on  his  first  coming  to  Lon¬ 
don  ;  he  continued  it  at  Greenwich 
and  finished  it  at  Lichfield.  Life,  i. 
106-7. 

5  foseph  Andrews,  Bk.  ii.  ch.  12. 

6  ‘  Heav’ns  !  was  I  born  for  no¬ 

thing  but  to  write?’ 


Pope,  Prologue  to  the  Satires,  1. 
272. 

7  ‘  He  from  the  taste  obscene  re¬ 

claims  our  youth, 

And  sets  the  passions  on  the 
side  of  truth.’ 

Pope,  Imitations  of  Horace,  Epis. 
2.  1.  217. 

8  Writing  about  the  representation 
of  Dodsley’s  Cleone  Johnson  says  : — 
‘  I  went  the  first  night,  and  supported 
it  as  well  I  might ;  for  Doddy,  you 
know,  is  my  patron,  and  I  would  not 
desert  him.’  Life ,  i.  326. 

9  Id.  i.  124. 

10  Pope,  Essay  on  Man,  i.  14. 

poem 


342  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr .  Johnson 


poem  had  a  great  sale,  was  applauded  by  the  public,  and  praised 
by  Mr.  Pope,  who,  not  being  able  to  discover  the  author,  said 
‘  he  will  soon  be  deterre  V  In  1738  he  luckily  fell  into  the  hands 
of  his  other  early  patron,  Cave.  His  speeches  for  the  Senate  of 
Lilliput  were  begun  in  1740,  and  continued  for  several  sessions. 
They  passed  for  original  with  many  till  very  lately.  But  Johnson, 
who  detested  all  injurious  imposition,  took  a  great  deal  of  pains 
to  acknowledge  the  innocent  deception.  He  gave  Smollett  notice 
of  their  unoriginality,  while  he  was  going  over  his  historical 
ground,  and  to  be  upon  his  guard  in  quoting  from  the  Lilliput 
Debates1  2.  It  is  within  recollection,  that  an  animated  speech  he 
put  into  the  mouth  of  Pitt,  in  answer  to  the  Parliamentary 
veteran,  Horace  Walpole 3,  was  much  talked  of,  and  considered 
as  genuine4.  Members  of  parliament  acknowledge,  that  they 
reckon  themselves  much  obliged  for  the  printed  accounts  of 
debates  of  both  Houses,  because  they  are  made  to  speak  better 
than  they  do  in  the  Senate.  Within  these  few  years,  a  gentle¬ 
man  in  a  high  employment  under  government  was  at  breakfast  in 
Gray’s-Inn,  where  Johnson  was  present,  and  was  commending 
the  excellent  preservation  of  the  speeches  of  both  houses,  in  the 
Lilliput  Debates 5.  He  declared,  he  knew  how  to  appropriate 
every  speech  without  a  signature  ;«  for  that  every  person  spoke 
in  character,  and  was  as  certainly  and  as  easily  known  as  a 
speaker  in  Homer  or  in  Shakspeare.  ‘  Very  likely,  Sir,’  said 


1  Ante ,  i.  373. 

2  Smollett  quoted  them  as  if  they 
were  genuine.  History  of  England, 
iii.  73.  See  Life ,  i.  505. 

3  Horace  Walpole,  first  Baron 
Walpole,  brother  of  Sir  Robert. 

4  It  is  the  speech  which  begins  : — 
‘  Sir,  the  atrocious  crime  of  being  a 
young  man,  which  the  honourable 
gentleman  has  with  such  spirit 
and  decency  charged  upon  me,  I 
shall  neither  attempt  to  palliate  nor 
deny,  but  content  myself  with  wish¬ 
ing  that  I  may  be  one  of  those  whose 
follies  may  cease  with  their  youth, 

and  not  of  that  number  who  are 


ignorant  in  spite  of  experience.’ 
Works,  x.  355. 

Horace  Walpole,  Sir  Robert  Wal¬ 
pole’s  son,  complained  that  the 
published  report  of  his  own  first 
speech  (  did  not  contain  one  sentence 
of  the  true  one.’  Walpole’s  Letters , 
i.  147.  Forty-nine  years  later  he 
wrote : — ‘I  never  knew  Johnson  wrote 
the  speeches  in  the  Gentleman' s 
Magazine  till  he  died.’  Ib.  ix. 
319. 

5  Wedderburne,  I  think,  is  meant. 
He  was  one  of  the  party — a  dinner 
party  given  by  Foote.  Life,  i.  504; 
a?ite,  i.  378. 


Johnson 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


343 


Johnson,  ashamed  of  having  deceived  him,  ‘but  I  wrote  them  in 
the  garret  where  I  then  lived.’  His  predecessor  in  this  oratorical 
fabrication  was  Guthrie  1  ;  his  successor  in  the  Magazine  was 
Hawkesworth 2.  It  is  said,  that  to  prove  himself  equal  to  this 
employment  (but  there  is  not  leisure  for  the  adjustment  of 
chronology)  in  the  judgment  of  Cave,  he  undertook  the  Life  of 
Savage3,  which  he  asserted  (not  incredible  of  him),  and  valued 
himself  upon  it,  that  he  wrote  in  six  and  thirty  hours  4.  In  one 
night  he  also  composed,  after  finishing  an  evening  in  Holborn, 
his  Hermit  of  Tenerijf 5.  He  sat  up  a  whole  night  to  compose 
the  preface  to  the  Preceptor  6. 

His  eye-sight  was  not  good  ;  but  he  never  wore  spectacles,  not 
on  account  of  such  a  ridiculous  vow  as  Swift  made  not  to  use 
them  7,  but  because  he  was  assured  they  would  be  of  no  service  to 
him.  He  once  declared,  that  he  ‘  never  saw  the  human  face 
divine  8.’  He  saw  better  with  one  eye  than  the  other,  which, 
however,  was  not  like  that  of  Camoens,  the  Portuguese  poet,  as 
expressed  on  his  medal 9.  Latterly  perhaps  he  meant  to  save  his 
eyes,  and  did  not  read  so  much  as  he  otherwise  would.  He 
preferred  conversation  to  books  ;  but  when  driven  to  the  refuge 
of  reading  by  being  left  alone,  he  then  attached  himself  to  that 


1  Ante ,  i.  378  ;  ii.  92  ;  Life ,  i.  116. 

2  Life,  i.  512. 

3  The  publication  of  the  last  of 
Johnson’s  Debates  was  in  March, 
1744;  the  Life  of  Savage  had  ap¬ 
peared  in  the  previous  February.  Ib. 
i.  165,  5 1 1. 

4  ‘  I  wrote  forty-eight  of  the  printed 
octavo  pages  of  the  Life  of  Savage 
at  a  sitting ;  but  then  I  sat  up  all 
night.’  Ib.  v.  67.  There  were  180 
pages  in  all. 

5  The  Vision  of  Theodore  the 

Hermit  of  Tenerife  found  in  his 
Cell.  Works,  ix.  162.  ‘  The  Bishop 

of  Dromore  heard  Dr.  Johnson  say 
that  he  thought  this  was  the  best 
thing  he  ever  wrote.’  Life ,  i.  192. 

6  Ib.  i.  192. 

7  ‘  Having  thus  excluded  conver¬ 

sation  and  desisted  from  study  Swift 


had  neither  business  nor  amuse¬ 
ment  ;  for  having  by  some  ridiculous 
resolution,  or  mad  vow,  determined 
never  to  wear  spectacles  he  could 
make  little  use  of  books  in  his  later 
years.’  Johnson’s  Works ,  viii.  218. 
Perhaps  Stella  used  to  urge  him  to 
wear  them,  for  in  his  verses  to  her 
he  says  : — 

‘  Nor  think  on  our  approaching 
ills, 

And  talk  of  spectacles  and  pills.’ 

Swift’s  Works,  ed.  1803,  xi.  21. 

8  Paradise  Lost,  iii.  44.  For 
Johnson’s  eyesight  see  aiite,  i.  337. 

9  In  the  Gentleman' s  Magazine 
for  April,  1784  (p.  257),  is  given  an 
engraving  of  this  medal,  which  shows 
Camoens’  disfigurement  by  the  loss  of 
an  eye.  See  also  ib.  p.  415. 


amusement 


344  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


amusement x.  c  Till  this  year/  said  he  to  an  intimate,  ‘  I  have 
done  tolerably  well  without  sleep,  for  I  have  been  able  to  read 
like  Hercules 1  2.’  But  he  picked  and  culled  his  companions  for 
his  midnight  hours  ;  ‘  and  chose  his  author  as  he  chose  his  friend3.’ 
The  mind  is  as  fastidious  about  its  intellectual  meal  as  the 
appetite  is  as  to  its  culinary  one  ;  and  it  is  observable,  that  the 
dish  or  the  book  that  palls  at  one  time  is  a  banquet  at  another4. 
By  his  innumerable  quotations  you  would  suppose,  with  a  great 
personage 5,  that  he  must  have  read  more  books  than  any  man  in 
England,  and  have  been  a  mere  book-worm :  but  he  acknowledged 
that  supposition  was  a  mistake  in  his  favour.  He  owned  he  had 
hardly  ever  read  a  book  through 6.  The  posthumous  volumes  of 
Mr.  Harris  of  Salisbury  (which  treated  of  subjects  that  were 
congenial  with  his  own  professional  studies)  had  attractions  that 
engaged  him  to  the  end 7.  Churchill  used  to  say,  having  heard 
perhaps  of  his  confession,  as  a  boast,  that  c  if  Johnson  had  only 
read  a  few  books,  he  could  not  be  the  author  of  his  own  works.’ 
His  opinion,  however,  was,  that  he  who  reads  most,  has  the 
chance  of  knowing  most ;  but  he  declared,  that  the  perpetual 
task  of  reading  was  as  bad  as  the  slavery  in  the  mine,  or  the  labour 


1  On  April  19,  1783,  he  wrote  : — 
‘  I  can  apply  better  to  books  than 
I  could  in  some  more  vigorous  parts 
of  my  life,  at  least  than  I  did ;  and 
I  have  one  more  reason  for  reading  ; 
that  time  has,  by  taking  away  my 
companions,  left  me  less  opportunity 
of  conversation.’  Letters ,  ii.  289. 
See  also  Life ,  iv.  218,  n.  1,  where  he 
said  to  Malone  : — ‘  I  have  been  con¬ 
fined  this  week  past ;  and  here  you 
find  me  roasting  apples  and  reading 
the  History  of  Birmingham? 

2  ‘He  lamented  much  his  inability 
to  read  during  his  hours  of  restless¬ 
ness.  “  I  used  formerly  (he  added) 
when  sleepless  in  bed  to  read  like 
a  Turk."  ’  Life,  iv.  409. 

3  ‘  Then  seek  a  Poet  who  your 

Way  does  bend 

And  chuse  an  Author  as  you 

chuse  a  Friend? 


Roscommon,  Essay  on  Translated 
Verse ,  1.  95. 

4  Life,  iii.  193. 

5  Boswell  describes  George  III  as 
‘A  Great  Personage.’  lb.  i.  219. 
Tyers  exaggerates  what  the  king 
said.  lb.  ii.  36. 

6  lb.  i.  71;  ii.  226;  ante,  i.  332,  363. 

7  Harris’s  last  work,  his  Philo¬ 
logical  Inquiries,  was  published  in 
1781,  the  year  after  his  death. 

Johnson.  “  Harris  is  a  sound 
sullen  scholar ;  he  does  not  like  in¬ 
terlopers.  Harris,  however,  is  a  prig, 
and  a  bad  prig.  I  looked  into  his 
book  [Hermes]  and  thought  he  did 
not  understand  his  own  system.”  ’ 
Life,  iii.  245.  See  ib.  v.  377,  where 
‘  he  thought  Harris  “  a  coxcomb.” 
This  he  said  of  him  not  as  a  man  but 
as  an  author.’  See  also  ante ,  i.  187  ; 
ii.  70. 


at 


by  Thomas  Tyers . 


345 


at  the  oar.  He  did  not  always  give  his  opinion  unconditionally 
of  the  pieces  he  had  even  perused,  and  was  competent  to  decide 
upon  \  He  did  not  choose  to  have  his  sentiments  generally 
known  ;  for  there  was  a  great  eagerness,  especially  in  those  who 
had  not  the  pole-star  of  judgment  to  direct  them,  to  be  taught 
what  to  think  or  say  on  literary  performances.  8  What  does 
Johnson  say  of  such  a  book?’  was  the  question  of  every  day. 
Besides,  he  did  not  want  to  increase  the  number  of  his  enemies, 
which  his  decisions  and  criticisms  had  created  him  ;  for  he  was 
generally  willing  to  retain  his  friends,  to  whom,  and  their  works, 
he  bestowed  sometimes  too  much  praise,  and  recommended  be¬ 
yond  their  worth,  or  perhaps  his  own  esteem.  But  affection  knows 
no  bounds.  Shall  this  pen  find  a  place  in  the  present  page  to 
mention,  that  a  shameless  Aristophanes  had  an  intention  of 
taking  him  off  upon  the  stage,  as  the  Rehearsal  does  the  great 
Dryden 1  2  ?  When  it  came  to  the  notice  of  our  exasperated  man 
of  learning,  he  conveyed  such  threats  of  vengeance  and  personal 
punishment  to  the  mimic,  that  he  was  glad  to  proceed  no  farther3. 
The  reverence  of  the  public  for  his  character  afterwards,  which 
was  increasing  every  year,  would  not  have  suffered  him  to  be  the 
object  of  theatrical  ridicule.  Like  Fame  in  Virgil,  vires  acquirit 
eundo  4.  In  the  year  1738  he  wrote  the  Life  of  Father  Paul ,  and 
published  proposals  for  a  translation  of  his  History  of  the  Council 
of  Trent ,  by  subscription  :  but  it  did  not  go  on  5.  Mr.  Urban 
even  yet  hopes  to  recover  some  sheets  of  this  translation, 
that  were  in  a  box  under  St.  John’s  Gate;  more  certainly  once 


1  ‘J0HNS0N*  “  My  judgment  I 
have  found  is  no  certain  rule  as  to 
the  sale  of  a  book.”  BOSWELL. 

Pray,  Sir,  have  you  been  much 
plagued  with  authors  sending  you 
their  works  to  revise?”  JOHNSON. 
“  No,  Sir  ;  I  have  been  thought  a 
sour,  surly  fellow.”’  Life ,  iv.  12 1. 
See  ante ,  i.  332. 

2  Life ,  ii.  168  ;  Works,  vii.  272. 

3  The  mimic  was  Foote.  Ante,  i. 
424. 

4  Aeneid,  iv.  175. 

5  Life,  i.  107,  135,  139. 


Macaulay,  after  saying  that  he 
‘  admires  no  historians  much  except 
Herodotus,  Thucydides  and  Tacitus,’ 
continues  ; — ‘  Perhaps,  in  his  way, 
a  very  peculiar  way,  I  might  add 
Fra  Paolo.  .  .  .  He  is  my  favourite 
modern  historian.  His  subject  did 
not  admit  of  vivid  painting;  but, 
what  he  did,  he  did  better  than  any¬ 
body.’  Trevelyan’s  Macaulay ,  ed. 
1877,  ii.  270,  285.  ‘That  incom¬ 
parable  historian,’  Gibbon  called 
him.  Misc.  Works ,  iv.  551. 


placed 


346  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


placed  there,  than  Rowley’s  Poems  were  in  the  chest  in  a  tower 
of  the  church  of  Bristol x. 

Night  was  his  time  for  composition.  Indeed  he  literally  turned 
night  into  day,  nodes  vigilabat  ad  ipsum  mane  ;  but  not  like 
Tigellius  in  Horace 1  2 3.  Perhaps  he  never  was  a  good  sleeper,  and 
(while  all  the  rest  of  the  world  was  in  bed)  he  chose  his  lamp,  in 
the  words  of  Milton, 

‘  In  midnight  hour, 

Were  seen  in  some  high  lonely  tower  V 

He  wrote  and  lived  perhaps  at  one  time  only  from  day  to 
day,  and  (according  to  vulgar  expression)  from  sheet  to  sheet. 
Dr.  Cheyne  4  reprobates  the  practice  of  turning  night  into  day, 
as  pernicious  to  mind  and  body.  Jortin  has  something  to  say 
on  the  vigils  of  a  learned  man,  in  his  Life  of  Erasmus.  ‘  As  he 
would  not  sleep  when  he  could,  nothing  but  opium  could  procure 
him  repose.’  There  is  cause  to  believe,  he  would  not  have 
written  unless  under  the  pressure  of  necessity.  Magister  artis 
ingenique  largitor  venter ,  says  Persius  5.  He  wrote  to  live,  and 
luckily  for  mankind  lived  a  great  many  years  to  write.  All  his 
pieces  are  promised  for  a  new  edition  of  his  works  under  the 
inspection  of  Sir  John  Hawkins,  one  of  his  executors,  who  has 
undertaken  to  be  his  biographer.  Johnson’s  high  tory  prin¬ 
ciples  in  church  and  state  were  well  known.  But  neither  his 
Prophecy  of  the  Hanover  Horse>  lately  maliciously  reprinted  6, 


1  Life ,  iii.  50. 

2  Satires ,  i.  3.  17.  Steevens  denies 
that  ‘  night  was  Johnson’s  time  for 
composition.’  Ante ,  ii.  328. 

3  ‘  Or  let  my  lamp  at  midnight 

hour 

Be  seen  in  some  high  lonely 
tower.’ 

It  Penseroso,  1.  85. 

4  Life ,  i.  65.  Fielding  writes  his 
name  Cheney ,  which  shows  how  it 
was  pronounced.  ‘The  learned  Dr. 
Cheney  used  to  call  drinking  punch 
pouring  liquid  fire  down  your  throat.’ 
Tom  Jones ,  Bk.  xi.  ch.  8. 

5  Prologus ,  1.  10. 

6  Marmor  Norfolciense  ( Life ,  i. 


141)  ‘resolves  itself  into  an  invective 
against  a  standing  army,  a  ridicule  of 
the  balance  of  power,  complaints  of 
the  inactivity  of  the  British  lion,  and 
that  the  Hanover  horse  was  suffered 
to  suck  his  blood.’  Hawkins,  p.  72. 
It  was  reprinted  in  1775.  About  a 
year  later  Boswell  mentioned  the 
republication  to  Johnson.  ‘To  my 
surprise,  he  had  not  yet  heard  of  it. 
He  requested  me  to  go  directly  and 
get  it  for  him,  which  I  did.  He 
looked  at  it  and  laughed,  and  seemed 
to  be  much  diverted  with  the  feeble 
efforts  of  his  unknown  adversary, 
who,  I  hope,  is  alive  to  read  this 
account.  ‘‘  Now  (said  he)  here  is 

nor 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


347 


nor  his  political  principles  or  conversations,  got  him  into  any 
personal  difficulties,  nor  prevented  the  offer  of  a  pension,  nor  his 
acceptance.  Rara  temporum  felicitas ,  ubi  sentire  quce  velis ,  et, 
quce  sentias  dicere  licet  \  The  present  royal  family  are  winning 
the  hearts  of  all  the  friends  of  the  house  of  Stuart 2.  There  is 
here  neither  room  nor  leisure  to  ascertain  the  progress  of  his 
publications,  though,  in  the  idea  of  Shenstone,  it  would  exhibit 
the  history  of  his  mind  and  thoughts. 

He  was  employed  by  Osborne  to  make  a  catalogue  of  the 
Harleian  Library.  Perhaps,  like  those  who  stay  too  long  on  an 
errand,  he  did  not  make  the  expedition  his  employer  expected, 
from  whom  he  might  deserve  a  gentle  reprimand.  The  fact  was, 
when  he  opened  a  book  he  liked,  he  could  not  restrain  from 
reading  it.  The  bookseller  upbraided  him  in  a  gross  manner, 
and,  as  tradition  goes,  gave  him  the  lie  direct,  though  our 
catalogue-maker  offered  at  an  excuse.  Johnson  turned  the 
volume  into  a  weapon,  and  knocked  him  down,  and  told  him, 
‘  not  to  be  in  a  hurry  to  rise,  for  when  he  did,  he  proposed 
kicking  him  down  stairs 3.  Perhaps  the  lie  direct  may  be 
punished  ad  modum  recipientis ,  as  the  law  gives  no  satisfaction. 
His  account  of  the  collection,  and  the  tracts  that  are  printed  in 
quarto  volumes 4,  were  well  received  by  the  public.  Of  his  folio 
labours  in  his  English  Dictionary 5  a  word  must  be  said ;  but  there 
is  not  room  for  much.  The  delineation  of  his  plan,  which  was 
esteemed  a  beautiful  composition,  was  inscribed  to  Lord  Chester¬ 
field,  no  doubt  with  permission,  whilst  he  was  secretary  of  state  6. 
It  was  at  this  time,  he  said,  he  aimed  at  elegance  of  writing,  and 


somebody  who  thinks  he  has  vexed 
me  sadly :  yet,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  you,  you  rogue,  I  should  prob¬ 
ably  never  have  seen  it.” 5  Life,  i. 
142. 

1  Tacitus,  Historiae ,  i.  1. 

2  1  Dr.  Johnson  grew  so  out¬ 
rageous  as  to  say  [in  1777]  that  if 
England  were  fairly  polled  the  pre¬ 
sent  King  would  be  sent  away  to¬ 
night,  and  his  adherents  hanged 
to-morrow.’  Life,  iii.  155.  ‘Sir 
(said  he  [1783]  in  a  low  voice,  having 


come  nearer  to  me,  while  his  old 
prejudices  seemed  to  be  fermenting 
in  his  mind),  this  Hanoverian  family 
is  isolee  here.  They  have  no  friends.’ 
Ib.  iv,  165. 

3  Ante,  i.  304;  Life,  i.  154. 

4  The  Harleian  Miscellany  was 
printed  in  eight  quarto  volumes. 
Johnson  wrote  the  preface.  Life,  i. 
175- 

5  His  Dictionary  was  published  in 
two  folio  volumes. 

6  Lb.  i.  183. 


set 


348  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


set  for  his  emulation  the  Preface  of  Chambers  to  his  Cyclopedia' . 
Johnson  undoubtedly  expected  beneficial  patronage.  It  should 
seem  that  he  was  in  the  acquaintance  of  his  Lordship,  and  that 
he  had  dined  at  his  table,  by  an  allusion  to  him  in  a  letter  to  his 
son,  printed  by  Mrs.  Stanhope,  and  which  he  himself  would  have 
been  afraid  to  publish.  While  he  was  ineffectually  hallooing  the 
Graces  in  the  ear  of  his  son,  he  set  before  him  the  slovenly  be¬ 
haviour  of  our  author  at  his  table,  whom  he  acknowledges  as  a 
great  genius,  but  points  him  out  as  a  rock  to  avoid,  and  considers 
him  only  as  ‘  a  respectable  Hottentot1  2.’  When  the  book  came 
out,  Johnson  took  his  revenge,  by  saying  of  it,  ‘  that  the  instruc¬ 
tions  to  his  son  inculcated  the  manners  of  a  dancing  master,  and 
the  morals  of  a  prostitute  3.’  Within  this  year  or  two  he  observed 
(for  anger  is  a  short-lived  passion),  that,  bating  some  impro¬ 
prieties,  it  contained  good  directions,  and  was  not  a  bad  system 
of  education4.  But  Johnson  probably  did  not  think  so  highly 
of  his  own  appearance  as  of  his  morals.  For,  on  being  asked  if 
Mr.  .Spence  had  not  paid  him  a  visit5?  ‘Yes/  says  he,  ‘and 
he  probably  may  think  he  visited  a  bear.’  ‘Johnson,’  says  the 
author  of  the  Life  of  Socrates ,  ‘is  a  literary  savage.’  ‘Very 
likely,’  replied  Johnson  ;  ‘  and  Cooper  (who  was  as  thick  as  long) 
is  a  literary  Punchinello 6.’ 

1  ‘  He  once  told  me  that  he  had 
formed  his  style  upon  that  of  Sir 
William  Temple,  and  upon  Cham¬ 
bers’s  Proposal  for  his  Dictionary .’ 

Life,  i.  218. 

2  I  had  proved,  I  thought,  beyond 
a  doubt  that  it  was  not  Johnson,  but 
the  first  Lord  Lyttelton,  who  was 
Chesterfield’s  Hottentot.  Life,  i.  267, 

71.  2 ;  Lord  Chesterfield' s  Worldly 
Wisdom,  p.  134.  I  was  disappointed 
to  find  that  the  Professor  of  English 
Literature  in  Glasgow,  the  late  Mr. 

John  Nichol,  held  to  the  old  opinion  in 
his  Tho77ias  Carlyle  (English  Men  of 
Letters  Series),  p.  44.  See  ante ,  i.  384. 

3  ‘  They  teach  the  morals  of  a 

whore,  and  the  manners  of  a  dancing 

master.’  Life ,  i.  266. 

It 


4  ‘Lord  Chesterfield’s  Letters  to  his 
S071 ,  I  think,  might  be  made  a  very 
pretty  book.  Take  out  the  im¬ 
morality,  and  it  should  be  put  into 
the  hands  of  every  young  gentleman.’ 
Ib.  iii.  53. 

5  ‘  I  mentioned  Pope’s  friend, 
Spence.  Johnson.  “He  was  a 
weak  conceited  man.”  Boswell. 
“A  good  scholar,  Sir?”  JOHNSON. 
“Why,  no,  Sir.”  Boswell.  “He 
was  a  pretty  scholar.”  JOHNSON. 
“You  have  about  reached  him.”’ 
Ib.  v.  317. 

6  Cooper  wrote  the  Life  of  Socrates. 
‘  Being  told  that  Gilbert  Cowper 
[sic]  called  him  the  Caliban  of  Litera¬ 
ture  ;  “  Well  (said  he,)  I  must  dub 
him  the  Punchinello.”  ’  Life,  ii.  129. 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


349 


It  does  not  appear  that  Lord  Chesterfield  showed  any  sub¬ 
stantial  proofs  of  approbation  to  our  Philologer,  for  that  was  the 
professional  title  he  chose x.  A  small  present  he  would  have 
disdained2.  Johnson  was  not  of  a  temper  to  put  up  with  the 
affront  of  disappointment.  He  revenged  himself  in  a  letter  to 
his  Lordship,  written  with  great  acrimony,  and  renouncing  all 
acceptance  of  favour3.  It  was  handed  about,  and  probably  will 
be  published,  for  litera  scripta  manet.  He  used  to  say,  ‘he  was 
mistaken  in  his  choice  of  a  patron,  for  he  had  simply  been 
endeavouring  to  gild  a  rotten  post4.’ 

Lord  Chesterfield  indeed  commends  and  recommends  Mr. 
Johnson’s  Dictionary  in  two  or  three  numbers  of  the  World. 
Not  words  alone  pleased  him.  ‘  When  I  had  undergone,’  says 
the  compiler,  ‘a  long  and  fatiguing  voyage,  and  was  just  getting 
into  port,  this  Lord  sent  out  a  small  cock-boat  to  pilot  me  in5.’ 
The  agreement  for  this  great  work  was  for  fifteen  hundred  pounds. 
This  was  a  large  bookseller’s  venture  at  that  time :  and  it  is  in 
many  shares  6.  Robertson,  Gibbon.,  and  a  few  more,  have  raised 
the  price  of  manuscript  copies.  In  the  course  of  fifteen  years, 
two  and  twenty  thousand  pounds  have  been  paid  to  four  authors7. 


1  ‘  Philology  and  biography  were 
his  favourite  pursuits.’  Life,  iv.  34. 
‘  The  faults  of  the  book  [the  Dic- 
tionary ]  resolve  themselves,  for  the 
most  part,  into  one  great  fault. 
Johnson  was  a  wretched  etymolo¬ 
gist.’  Macaulay’s  Misc.  Writings , 
ed.  1871,  p.  382.  Perhaps  he  was 
not  worse  than  some  of  the  most 
learned  of  his  contemporaries.  Phi¬ 
lology,  as  a  science,  did  not  yet 
exist.  Johnson  defines  it  as  ‘  criti¬ 
cism  ;  grammatical  learning.’ 

2  He  had  received  ten  pounds. 
Life ,  i.  261. 

3  lb.  i.  261. 

4  According  to  Rebecca  Warner 

(1 Original  Letters ,  p.  204),  Johnson 
telling  Joseph  Fowke  about  his  re¬ 
fusal  to  dedicate  his  Dictionary  to 

Chesterfield,  said  : — ‘  Sir,  I  found  I 

must  have  gilded  a  rotten  post.’ 


5  Life ,  i.  260 ;  ante ,  i.  405. 

6  Boswell  mentions  seven  partners 
in  the  Dictionary.  Life ,  i.  183.  In 
the  title-page  of  the  first  edition  an 
eighth,  L.  Hawes,  is  mentioned. 

7  In  1773  Hawkesworth  was  paid 
£ 6,000  for  Cook's  Voyages.  Ib.  ii. 
247,  n.  5.  In  1768  Robertson  was 
paid  ,£3,400  for  the  first  edition  of 
his  Charles  V.  For  the  second  edi¬ 
tion  he  was  to  receive  £[400.  Letters 
of  Hume  to  Strahan,  p.  15.  Hume, 
for  the  first  two  volumes  of  his  His¬ 
tory  of  England  (the  Stuart  period), 
received,  it  seems,  ,£1,940.  At  this 
rate  he  would  have  received  nearly 
,£8,000  for  the  whole  work.  1  The 
copy-money  given  me  by  the  book¬ 
sellers,’  he  wrote,  ‘  much  exceeded 
anything  formerly  known  in  Eng¬ 
land.’  Ib.  pp.  15,  33.  How  much 
Gibbon  was  paid  is  not,  I  think, 

Johnson’s 


350  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Johnson’s  world  of  words  demands  frequent  editions.  His  titles 
of  Doctor  of  Laws  from  Dublin  and  from  Oxford  1  (both  of  which 
came  to  him  unasked  and  unknown,  and  only  not  unmerited) ; 
his  pension  from  the  King,  which  is  to  be  considered  as  a  reward 
for  his  pioneering  services  in  the  English  language,  and  by  no 
means  as  a  bribe 2 ;  gave  him  consequence,  and  made  the 
Dictionary  and  its  author  more  extensively  known.  It  is  a 
royal  satisfaction  to  have  made  the  life  of  a  learned  man  more 
comfortable  to  him. 

‘These  are  imperial  works,  and  worthy  Kings3.’ 

Lord  Corke,  who  would  have  been  kinder  to  him  than  Stanhope 
(if  he  could)  as  soon  as  it  came  out,  presented  the  Dictionary  to 
the  Academy  della  Crusca  at  Florence  in  17554.  Even  for  the 
abridgment  in  octavo5,  which  puts  it  into  every  body’s  hands,  he 
was  paid  to  his  satisfaction,  by  the  liberality  of  his  booksellers. 
His  reputation  is  as  great  for  compiling,  digesting,  and  ascertaining 
the  English  language,  as  if  he  had  invented  it.  His  Grammar 
in  the  beginning  of  the  work  was  the  best  in  our  language,  in  the 
opinion  of  Goldsmith.  During  the  printing  of  his  Dictionary, 
the  Ramblers  came  out  periodically ;  for  he  could  do  more 
than  one  thing  at  a  time.  He  declared  that  he  wrote  them  by 
way  of  relief  from  his  application  to  his  Dictionary,  and  for  the 
reward.  He  has  told  this  writer,  that  he  had  no  expectation 
they  would  have  met  with  so  much  success,  and  been  so  much 
read  and  admired 6.  What  was  amusement  to  him,  is  instruction 


known.  Blair  was  paid  for  his  Ser¬ 
mons,  ,£1,100.  Life ,  iii.  98.  For  his 
Lectures  on  Rhetoric ,  which  came 
later,  he,  no  doubt,  received  a  far 
larger  sum.  His  Sermons  and  Hume’s 
History  do  not,  however,  fall  within 
‘  a  course  of  fifteen  years.’  Boswell 
was,  it  seems,  offered  £  1,000  for  his 
Life  of  fohnson ,  but  he  resolved  to 
keep  the  copyright.  Ante ,  ii.  33,  37. 

1  Life ,  i.  488  ;  ii.  331. 

2  ‘He  told  Sir  Joshua  that  Lord 
Bute  said  to  him  expressly,  “  It  is 
not  given  you  for  anything  you  are 
to  do,  but  for  what  you  have  done.” 


His  Lordship,  he  said,  behaved  in 
the  handsomest  manner.  He  re¬ 
peated  the  words  twice,  that  he 
might  be  sure  Johnson  heard  them.’ 
Lb.  i.  374. 

3  ‘  These  are  imperial  arts  and 

worthy  thee.’ 

Dryden,  quoted  in  Johnson’s  Dic¬ 
tionary. 

4  Life ,  i.  298,  443.  Stanhope  was 
Lord  Chesterfield. 

5  Lb.  i.  305. 

6  ‘  So  slowly  did  this  excellent 
work,  of  which  twelve  editions  have 
now  issued  from  the  press,  gain  upon 

to 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


35i 


to  others.  Goldsmith  declared,  that  a  system  of  morals  might 
be  drawn  from  these  Essays :  this  idea  is  taken  up  and 
executed  by  a  publication  in  an  alphabetical  series  of  moral 
maxims x. 

The  Rambler  is  a  great  task  for  one  person  to  accomplish, 
single-handed.  For  he  was  assisted  only  in  two  Essays  by 
Richardson,  two  by  Mrs.  Carter,  and  one  by  Miss  Talbot2.  His 
Idlers  had  more  hands3.  The  World* ,  the  Connoisseur 5, 
(the  Grays  Inn  Journal  an  exception6,)  the  Mirror 7,  the 
Adventurer 8,  the  Old  Maid 9,  all  had  helpmates.  The  toilet 
as  well  as  the  shelf  and  table  have  these  volumes,  lately  re¬ 
published  with  decorations.  Shenstone,  his  fellow  collegian,  calls 
his  style  a  learned  one10.  There  is  indeed  too  much  Latin  in  his 
English.  He  seems  to  have  caught  the  infectious  language  of  Sir 
Thomas  Brown,  whose  works  he  read,  in  order  to  write  his  life 
Though  it  cannot  be  said,  as  Campbell  did  of  his  own  last  work I2, 


the  world  at  large,  that  even  in  the 
closing  number  the  authour  says,  “  I 
have  never  been  much  a  favourite  of 
the  publick.’  ”  Life ,  i.  208. 

1  In  The  Beauties  of  the  Rambler. 
Ib.  i.  214.  In  note  1  on  this  page 
I  have  confused  this  book  with  The 
Beauties  of  fohnson. 

2  Ib.  i.  203  ;  ante ,  i.  465. 

3  Life ,  i.  330. 

4  Ib.  i.  257,  n.  3. 

5  Ib.  i.  420,  n.  3. 

6  ‘  It  was  successfully  carried  on  by 
Mr.  Murphy  alone,  when  a  very  young 
man.’  Ib.  i.  356  ;  ante ,  i.  408. 

7  Life ,  iv.  390. 

8  Ib.  i.  252. 

9  By  Frances  Brooke,  1755-6. 

10  Shenstone  matriculated  on  May 
25,  1732,  more  than  two  years  after 
Johnson  left.  Dr.  Johnson :  His 
Friends  and  his  Critics,  p.  345. 
Writing  on  Feb.  9,  1760,  Shenstone 
says : — ‘  I  have  lately  been  reading 
one  or  two  volumes  of  The  Rambler', 
who,  excepting  against  some  few 
hardnesses  in  his  manner,  and  the 


want  of  more  examples  to  enliven,  is 
one  of  the  most  nervous,  most  per¬ 
spicuous,  most  concise,  [and]  most 
harmonious  prose  writers  I  know. 
A  learned  diction  improves  by  time.’ 
Life,  ii.  452. 

11  ‘  Sir  Thomas  Brown,  whose  life 
Johnson  wrote,  was  remarkably  fond 
of  Anglo-Latian  diction  ;  and  to  his 
example  we  are  to  ascribe  Johnson’s 
sometimes  indulging  himself  in  this 
kind  of  phraseology.’  Ib.  i.  221.  See 
ib.  i.  308  for  an  example  of  Johnson’s 
Brownism.  Nevertheless  he  con¬ 
demned  Brown’s  style  as  ‘  a  tissue  of 
many  languages  ;  a  mixture  of  hete¬ 
rogeneous  words  brought  together 
from  distant  regions,’  &c.  Works, 
vi.  500.  Murphy  traces  Johnson’s 
learned  diction  to  his  work  on  the 
Dictionary.  Ante,  i.  466. 

12  A  Political  Survey  of  Great 
Britain.  ‘Johnson  said  to  me,  that 
he  believed  Campbell’s  disappoint¬ 
ment,  on  account  of  the  bad  success 
of  that  work,  had  killed  him.’  Life, 
ii.  447. 


that 


352  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


that  there  is  not  a  hard  word  in  it,  yet  he  does  not  rattle  through 
hard  words  and  stalk  through  polysyllables,  to  use  an  expression 
of  Addison1,  as  in  his  earlier  productions.  His  style,  as  he  says 
of  Pope,  became  smoothed  by  the  scythe,  and  levelled  by  the 
roller 2.  It  pleased  him  to  be  told  by  Dr.  Robertson,  that  he  had 
read  his  Dictionary  twice  over.  If  he  had  some  enemies  beyond 
and  even  on  this  side  of  the  Tweed,  he  had  more  friends3.  Only 
he  preferred  England  to  Scotland.  As  it  is  cowardly  to  insult 
a  dead  lion,  it  is  hoped,  that  as  death  extinguishes  envy,  it  also 
does  ill-will :  ‘for  British  vengeance  wars  not  with  the  dead4.’ 

He  gave  himself  very  much  to  companionable  friends  for  the 
last  years  of  his  life  (for  he  was  delivered  from  the  daily  labour 
of  the  pen,  and  he  wanted  relaxation),  and  they  were  eager  for 
the  advantage  and  reputation  of  his  conversation5.  Therefore  he 
frequently  left  his  own  home  (for  his  household  gods  were  not 
numerous  or  splendid  enough  for  the  reception  of  his  great 
acquaintance  6),  and  visited  them  both  in  town  and  country.  This 
was  particularly  the  case  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thrale  (ex  uno  disce 
omnes 7),  who  were  the  most  obliging  and  obliged  of  all  within  his 
intimacy,  and  to  whom  he  was  introduced  by  his  friend  Murphy8. 
He  lived  with  them  a  great  part  of  every  year.  He  formed  at 
Streatham  a  room  for  a  library,  and  increased  by  his  recom¬ 
mendation  the  number  of  books.  Here  he  was  to  be  found 
(himself  a  library)  when  a  friend  called  upon  him;  and  by  him  the 
friend  was  sure  to  be  introduced  to  the  dinner-table,  which  Mrs. 
Thrale  knew  how  to  spread  with  the  utmost  plenty  and  elegance9 ; 


1  ‘Your  high  nonsense  blusters  and 
makes  a  noise ;  it  stalks  upon  hard 
words  and  rattles  through  poly¬ 
syllables.’  The  Whig  Examiner , 
No.  4. 

2  ‘  Pope’s  page  is  a  velvet  lawn, 
shaven  by  the  scythe  and  levelled  by 
the  roller.’  Works,  viii.  324. 

3  Life ,  ii.  121,  306  ;  ante ,  i.  429. 

4 ‘From  zeal  or  malice  now  no 

more  we  dread, 

For  English  vengeance  wars 

not  with  the  dead.’ 

Johnson’s  Prologue  to  A  Word  to  the 


Wise.  Life ,  iii.  1 14 ;  ante,  i.  1 8 1 ;  ii.  6. 

5  Ante ,  ii.  115. 

6  Boswell,  who  dined  and  slept  at 
Johnson’s  house,  ‘found  everything 
in  excellent  order.’  Life,  ii.  215,  375  ; 
iv.  92.  Hawkins  (ante,  ii.  120)  says 
that  he  ‘sometimes  gave  not  inelegant 
dinners.’  See  also  ante ,  ii.  141. 

7  ‘Crimine  ab  uno 
Disce  omnes.’  Aeneid,  ii.  65. 

8  Ante,  i.  232. 

9  For  her  luxurious  table  see  Life , 
iii.  423,  n.  1 ;  Letters ,  ii.  389,  and 
ante,  ii.  43. 


and 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


353 


and  which  was  often  adorned  with  such  guests,  that  to  dine  there 
was,  epulis  accumbere  divum  1 * 3.  Of  Mrs.  Thrale,  if  mentioned  at 
all,  less  cannot  be  said,  than  that  in  one  of  the  latest  opinions  of 
Johnson,  ‘if  she  was  not  the  wisest  woman  in  the  world,  she  was 
undoubtedly  one  of  the  wittiest  V  She  took  or  caused  such  care 
to  be  taken  of  him,  during  an  illness  of  continuance,  that  Gold¬ 
smith  told  her,  e  he  owed  his  recovery  to  her  attention  V  She 
taught  him  to  lay  up  something  of  his  income  every  year 4.  Be¬ 
sides  a  natural  vivacity  in  conversation,  she  had  reading  enough, 
and  the  gods  had  made  her  poetical.  The  Three  Warnings 5 
(the  subject  she  owned  not  to  be  original)  are  highly  interesting 
and  serious,  and  literally  come  home  to  every  body’s  breast  and 
bosom.  The  writer  of  this  would  not  be  sorry  if  this  mention 
could  follow  the  lady  to  Venice6.  At  Streatham,  where  our 
Philologer  was  also  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend 7 ,  he  passed 
much  time.  His  inclinations  here  were  consulted,  and  his  will  was 
a  law.  With  this  family  he  made  excursions  into  Wales8  and 
to  Brighthelmstone.  Change  of  air  and  of  place  were  grateful 
to  him,  for  he  loved  vicissitude.  But  he  could  not  long  endure 
the  illiteracy  and  rusticity  of  the  country 9,  for  woods  and  groves, 
and  hill  and  dale,  were  not  his  scenes : 


1  Aeneid, ,  i.  79. 

*  ‘  “  I  wonder,”  said  Mrs.  Thrale, 
“you  bear  with  my  nonsense.”  “  No, 
Madam,  you  never  talk  nonsense; 
you  have  as  much  sense  and  more 
wit  than  any  woman  I  know.”  ’  Mme. 
D’Arblay’s  Diary,  i.  87.  See  also 
Letters ,  ii.  153. 

3  Ante,  i.  234. 

4  If  this  is  a  fact,— which  I  greatly 
doubt,  —  he  repaid  her  lesson  by 
urging  economy  on  her  and  her 
husband.  Letters,  i.  198-9.  S ^  Life, 
v.  442,  where  he  recorded  in  his 
Diary  : — ‘  Mrs.  Thrale  /ost  her  purse. 

She  expressed  so  much  uneasiness, 
that  I  concluded  the  sum  to  be  very 

great ;  but  when  I  heard  of  only 

seven  guineas,  I  was  glad  to  find 

that  she  had  so  much  sensibility  of 
money.’ 

VOL.  II.  A 


5  lb.  ii.  26.  Hayward’s  Piozzi,  ed. 
1861,  ii.  165. 

According  to  Lysons  1  the  first 
hint  of  this  poem  was  given  to  her 
by  Johnson  ;  she  brought  it  to  him 
very  incorrect ;  and  he  not  only  re¬ 
vised  it  throughout,  but  supplied 
several  new  lines.’  She  denied  that 
it  was  suggested  by  Johnson,  but 
apparently  admitted  the  rest  of  the 
statement.  Prior’s  Malone,  p.  413. 

6  After  her  second  marriage,  in 
July,  1784,  she  had  gone  to  Italy. 
Letters,  ii.  407,  n.  3. 

7  Pope,  Essay  o?i  Man,  iv.  390. 
Applied  also  by  Boswell  to  Johnson  in 
connexion  with  Mrs.  Thrale.  Life,  iii.  6. 

8  lb.  v.  427.  He  also  accompanied 
them  to  France.  Ib.  ii.  384.  Brighton 
he  frequently  visited  with  them. 

9  Nevertheless  he  paid  long  visits 

a  ‘  Tower’d 


354  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


‘Tower’d  cities  please  us  then, 

And  the  busy  hum  of  men1.’ 

But  the  greatest  honour  of  his  life  was  from  a  visit  that  he 
received  from  a  Great  Personage  in  the  Library  of  the  Queen’s 
palace — only  it  was  not  from  a  King  of  his  own  making2.  John¬ 
son  on  his  return  repeated  the  conversation,  which  was  much  to 
the  honour  of  the  great  person,  and  was  as  well  supported  as 
Lewis  the  XIVth  could  have  continued  with  Voltaire.  He  said, 
he  only  wanted  to  be  more  known,  to  be  more  loved  3.  They 
parted,  much  pleased  with  each  other.  If  it  is  not  an  impertinent 
stroke  of  this  pen,  it  were  to  be  wished  that  one  more  person 
had  conveyed  an  enquiry  about  him  during  his  last  illness. 

‘  Every  body  has  left  their  names,  or  wanted  to  know  how  I  do.’ 

says  he,  ‘  but  ’ - 4.  In  his  younger  days  he  had  a  great  many 

enemies,  of  whom  he  was  not  afraid. 

‘  Ask  you  what  provocation  I  have  had  ? 

The  strong  antipathy  of  good  to  bad5.’ 

Churchill,  the  puissant  satirist,  challenged  Johnson  to  combat : 
Satire  the  weapon6.  Johnson  never  took  up  the  gauntlet  or 
replied,  for  he  thought  it  unbecoming  him  to  defend  himself 
against  an  author  who  might  be  resolved  to  have  the  last  word 1 . 
He  was  content  to  let  his  enemies  feed  upon  him  as  long  as  they 
could.  This  writer  has  heard  Churchill  declare,  that  ‘he  thought 
the  poems  of  London ,  and  The  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  full 
of  admirable  verses,  and  that  all  his  compositions  were  diamonds 
of  the  first  water.’  But  he  wanted  a  subject  for  his  pen  and  for 
raillery,  and  so  introduced  Pomposo  into  his  descriptions.  ‘  For, 
with  other  wise  folks,  he  sat  up  with  the  ghost 8.’  Our  author, 


to  the  country — one  of  ‘  near  six 
months’  in  1767.  Life ,  iii.  450-3. 

1  L' Allegro,  1.  1 17. 

2  Life,  ii.  33.  Tyers  apparently 
alludes  to  Johnson’s  liking  for  the 
House  of  Stuart. 

3  For  Johnson’s  praise  of  the  King 
as  ‘  the  finest  gentleman  he  had  ever 
seen  ’  see  ib.  ii.  40. 

4  I  suppose  the  King  is  meant. 

5  Pope,  Epilogue  to  the  Satires , 
ii.  197. 


6  For  Churchill’s  attack  on  John¬ 
son  see  his  Works,  ed.  1766,  i.  216, 
261  ;  ii.  36,  and  Life,  i.  319,  406,  419  ; 
iii.  1,  n.  2.  Dr.  Warton  wrote  in 
1 797  :  — ‘We  all  remember  when 
Churchill  was  more  in  vogue  than 
Gray.’  Warton’ s  Pope’s  Works ,  i. 
Introduction,  p.  55. 

7  For  Johnson’s  silence  on  attack 
see  Life,  i.  314;  ante ,  i.  270,  407. 

8  ‘  The  gentlemen  eminent  for  their 
rank  and  character,’  among  them 

who 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


355 

who  had  too  implicit  a  confidence  in  human  testimony,  followed 
the  newspaper  invitation  to  Cock-lane,  in  order  to  detect  the 
imposter,  or,  if  it  proved  a  being  of  an  higher  order,  and  appeared 
in  a  questionable  shape1,  to  talk  with  it.  Posterity  must  be  per¬ 
mitted  to  smile  at  the  credulity  of  that  period2.  Johnson  had 
otherwise  a  vulnerable  side  ;  for  he  was  one  of  the  few  Non  jurors 
that  were  left 3,  and  it  was  supposed  he  would  never  bow  the 
knee  to  the  Baal  of  Whiggism.  This  reign,  which  disdained 
proscription,  began  with  granting  pensions  (without  requiring 
their  pens)  to  learned  men  4. 

Johnson  was  unconditionally  offered  one ;  but  such  a  turn  was 
given  to  it  by  the  last  mentioned  satirical  poet,  that  it  might 
have  made  him  angry  or  odious,  or  both.  Says  Churchill, 
amongst  other  passages  very  entertaining  to  a  neutral  reader, 

4  He  damns  the  pension  that  he  takes, 

And  loves  the  Stuart  he  forsakes5.’ 


Johnson  and  Douglas,  ‘the  great 
detector  of  impostures,’  who  one 
night  investigated  the  story  of  the 
Cock  Lane  Ghost,  ‘sat  rather  more 
than  an  hour  ’  in  the  chamber  where 
the  spirit  was  said  to  be  heard.  Life, 
i.  407,  n.  3.  ■ 

1  ‘  Thou  com’st  in  such  a  question¬ 
able  shape.’  Hamlet ,  Act  i.  sc.  4. 
1.  43.  Johnson,  in  a  note  on  this 
passage,  says  : — ‘  Hamlet,  amazed  at 
an  apparition  which,  though  in  all 
ages  credited,  has  in  ail  ages  been 
considered  as  the  most  wonderful 
and  most  dreadful  operation  of  super¬ 
natural  agency,  enquires  of  the 
spectre  in  the  most  emphatick  terms 
why  he  breaks  the  order  of  nature  by 
returning  from  the  dead.’ 

2  Neither  Dr.  Douglas  nor  Horace 
Walpole,  who  both  went  to  Cock 
Lane,  had  any  credulity.  Walpole’s 
Letters ,  iii.  481.  For  Johnson’s  state 
of  mind  see  Life ,  ii.  150;  iv.  298. 
Posterity,  just  at  present,  has  enough 
to  do  in  smiling  at  the  credulity  of 
its  own  period. 


3  ‘  Many  of  my  readers,’  says  Bos¬ 
well,  ‘  will  be  surprised  when  I  men¬ 
tion  that  Johnson  assured  me  he  had 
never  in  his  life  been  in  a  non-juring 
meeting-house.’  Ib.  iv.  287.  For 
Johnson’s  low  opinion  of  many  of 
the  Nonjurors  and  his  condemnation 
of  their  ‘  perverseness  of  integrity 1 
see  ib.  ii.  321. 

4  ‘The  accession  of  George  the 
Third  to  the  throne  of  these  king¬ 
doms,  opened  a  new  and  brighter 
prospect  to  men  of  literary  merit, 
who  had  been  honoured  with  no 
mark  of  royal  favour  in  the  preceding 
reign.’  Ib.  i.  372.  Goldsmith,  Smol¬ 
lett  and  Sterne  had  no  pension. 
Hume  had  one,  but  he  did  not  need 
it ;  and  so  had  Home  and  Beattie, 
and  what  was  far  worse,  Shebbeare. 
Later  on  no  pension  was  found  for 
Burns. 

5  ‘He  damns  the  pension  which 

he  takes.’ 

Churchill’s  Works ,  i.  262. 
See  Life ,  i.  429. 


A  a  2 


Not 


356  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Not  so  fast,  great  satirist — for  he  had  now  no  friends  at  Rome. 
In  the  sport  of  conversation,  he  would  sometimes  take  the  wrong 
side  of  a  question,  to  try  his  hearers,  or  for  his  own  exertions  *. 
But  this  may  do  mischief  sometimes.  ‘  For;’  without  aiming  at 
ludicrous  quotation,  ‘  he  could  dispute  on  both  sides,  and  con¬ 
fute1 2.’  Among  those  he  could  trust  himself  with,  he  would  enter 
into  imaginary  combat  with  the  whigs,  and  has  now  and  then 
shook  the  principles  of  a  sturdy  revolutionist3.  All  ingenious 
men  can  find  arguments  for  and  against  every  thing :  and  if  their 
hearts  are  not  good,  they  may  do  mischief  with  their  heads.  On 
all  occasions  he  pressed  his  antagonist  with  so  strong  a  front  of 
argument,  that  he  generally  prevented  his  retreat.  ‘  Every 
body,’  said  an  eminent  detector  of  imposters 4,  ‘  must  be  cautious 
how  they  enter  the  lists  with  Dr.  Johnson.’  He  wrote  many 
political  tracts  since  his  pension.  Perhaps  he  would  not  have 
written  at  all,  unless  impelled  by  gratitude 5.  But  he  wrote  his 
genuine  thoughts,  and  imagined  himself  contending  on  the  right 
side.  A  great  parliamentary  character  seems  to  resolve  all  his 

1  Ante ,  i.  390,  452. 

2  ‘He  could  distinguish  and  divide 

A  hair  ’twixt  south  and  south¬ 
west  side ; 

On  either  which  he  would 
dispute, 

Confute,  change  hands,  and 
still  confute.’ 

Hudibras ,  i.  I.  67. 

3  Revolutiojiist  was  one  who  up¬ 
held  the  principles  of  ‘the  glorious 
Revolution.’  The  Revolution  Society 
was  ‘  a  Club  which  had  a  yearly 
festival  [on  November  4,  the  birth¬ 
day  of  the  Prince  of  Orange]  in 
commemoration  of  the  events  of 
1688.’  Stanhope’s  Life  of  Pitt , 
ii.  65. 

In  the  Scots  Magazine ,  1 773,  p. 

613,  it  is  recorded: — ‘On  Nov.  15 
there  was  a  general  meeting  of  the 
members  of  the  Revolution  club  in 
Edinburgh,  when  several  constitu¬ 
tional  and  patriotic  toasts  were  given, 


suitable  to  the  occasion.  His  ex¬ 
cellency,  Sir  Adolphus  Oughton  [the 
Commander  in  Chief  in  Scotland] 
proposed  that  the  members  should 
for  the  future  on  Nov.  15  meet  early, 
and  walk  in  procession  to  church, 
where  a  sermon  should  be  preached 
on  Revolution  principles.  The  pro¬ 
posal  was  unanimously  agreed  to.’ 
Nov.  15  was  the  same  as  Nov.  4,  Old 
Style. 

4  Dr.  Douglas,  ‘  the  scourge  of  im¬ 
postors,  the  terror  of  quacks,’  as 
Goldsmith  calls  him  in  Retaliation. 
Life ,  i.  229. 

s  ‘  He  complained  to  a  Right  Hon¬ 
ourable  friend,  that  his  pension  hav¬ 
ing  been  given  to  him  as  a  literary 
character,  he  had  been  applied  to  by 
administration  to  write  political  pam¬ 
phlets  ;  and  he  was  even  so  much 
irritated,  that  he  declared  his  resolu¬ 
tion  to  resign  his  pension.’  7b.  ii. 
317.  See  ante,  i.  418. 


American 


by  Thomas  Tyers . 


357 


American  notions  into  the  vain  expectation  of  rocking  a  man  in 
the  cradle  of  a  child1.  Johnson  recounted  the  number  of  his 
opponents  with  indifference.  He  wrote  for  that  government 
which  had  been  generous  to  him.  He  was  too  proud  to  call 
upon  Lord  Bute,  or  leave  his  name  at  his  house2,  though  he 
was  told  it  would  be  agreeable  to  his  Lordship,  for  he  said 
he  had  performed  the  greater  difficulty,  for  he  had  taken  the 


pension. 

The  last  popular  work,  to  him'  an  easy  and  a  pleasing  one,  was 
the  writing  the  lives  of  our  poets,  now  reprinted  in  four  octavo 
volumes.  He  finished  this  business  so  much  to  the  satisfaction 


of  the  booksellers  that  they  presented  him  a  gratuity  of  one 
hundred  pounds,  having  paid  him  three  hundred  pounds  as  his 
price3.  The  Knaptons  made  Tindal  a  large  present  on  the  success 
of  his  translation  of  Rapin’s  history4.  But  an  unwritten  space 
must  be  found  for  what  Johnson  did  respecting  Shakspeare. 
For  the  writer  and  reader  observe  a  disorder  of  time  in  this  page. 
He  took  so  many  years  to  publish  his  edition,  that  his  subscribers 


grew  displeased  and  clamorous  for  their  books 5,  which  he  might 
have  prevented.  For  he  was  able  to  do  a  great  deal  in  a  little 
time.  Though  for  collation  he  was  not  fit.  He  could  not  pore 
long  on  a  text6.  It  was  Columbus  at  the  oar.  It  was  on  most 


1  ‘  We  may  as  well  think  of  rock¬ 
ing  a  grown  man  in  the  cradle  of  an 
infant.’  Burke’s  Works ,  ed.  1808, 
iii.  189. 

2  He  called  on  him  to  thank  him 
for  the  pension.  Life ,  i.  374.  See 
Hawkins,  p.  394,  and  ante ,  i.  418. 

3  He  received  200  guineas  by 
agreement,  100  guineas  as  a  present, 
and  £100  for  revising  a  new  edition. 
Life ,  iii.  ill;  iv.  35,  n.  3;  Letters , 

ii.  275.  The  booksellers’  generosity 
was  not  great,  for  Johnson  in  his 
work  had  gone  far  beyond  their  ex¬ 
pectations  and  his  own  intention 

{Life,  iv.  35,  n.  1),  while  the  sum 

which  he  had  asked  for  was  absurdly 
small.  He  might,  says  Malone,  have 
had  1,500  guineas.  The  booksellers, 
he  adds,  ‘  have  probably  got  5,000 


guineas  by  this  work  in  the  course  of 
25  years.’  lb.  iii.  in,  n.  1. 

4  ‘  I  am  credibly  informed  that  the 
Knaptons  will  get  8  or  ,£10,000  by 
that  History.’  Gentleman! s Magazine, 
173 4,  p.  490.  They  had  a  share  also 
in  Johnson’s  Dictionary.  Life ,  i.  183. 

5  Lb.  i.  319;  ante,  i.  422. 

6  ‘  The  collator’s  province  is  safe 
and  easy.  ...  I  collated  such  copies 
as  I  could  procure,  but  have  not 
found  the  collectors  of  these  rarities 
very  communicative.  By  examining 
the  old  copies  I  soon  found  that  the 
later  publishers,  with  all  their  boasts 
of  diligence,  suffered  many  passages 
to  stand  unauthorised,  and  contented 
themselves  with  Rowe’s  regulation 

of  the  text . These  corruptions  I 

have  often  silently  rectified.  .  .  .  Con- 

literary 


358  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 

literary  points  difficult  to  get  himself  into  a  willingness  to  work. 
He  was  idle,  or  unwell,  or  loth  to  act  upon  compulsion.  But  at 
last  he  tried  to  awake  his  faculties,  and,  like  the  lethargic  porter 
of  the  castle  of  Indolence,  ‘  to  rouse  himself  as  much,  as  rouse 
himself  he  can1.’  He  confessed  that  the  publication  of  his 
Shakspeare  answered  to  him  in  every  respect.  He  had  a  very 
large  subscription2. 

Dr.  Campbell,  then  alive  in  Queen-square 3,  who  had  a  volume 
in  his  hand,  pronounced  that  the  preface  and  notes  were  worth 
the  whole  subscription  money.  You  would  think  the  text  not 
approved  or  adjusted  by  the  past  or  present  editions,  and  re¬ 
quiring  to  be  settled  by  the  future.  It  is  hoped  that  the  next 
editors  will  have  read  all  the  books  that  Shakspeare  read :  a  pro¬ 
mise  our  Johnson  gave,  but  was  not  able  to  perform4. 

The  reader  is  apprized,  that  this  memoir  is  only  a  sketch  of 
life,  manner,  and  writings — 

jecture,  though  it  be  sometimes  un¬ 
avoidable,  I  have  not  wantonly  nor 
licentiously  indulged.  It  has  been 
my  settled  principle  that  the  reading 
of  the  ancient  books  is  probably 
true.  ...  I  have  endeavoured  to  per¬ 
form  my  task  with  no  slight  solici¬ 
tude.  Not  a  single  passage  in  the 
whole  work  has  appeared  to  me  cor¬ 
rupt,  which  I  have  not  attempted  to 
restore;  or  obscure,  which  I  have 
not  endeavoured  to  illustrate.’  John¬ 
son’s  Shakespeare ,  Preface,  pp.  61, 

69. 

‘  It  would  be  difficult  to  name  a 
more  slovenly,  a  more  worthless 
edition  of  any  great  classic.’  Mac¬ 
aulay’s  Misc.  Works ,  ed.  1871,  p. 

385.  e  Jolinson's  vig°r°us  a.nci  c°m- 
prehensive  understanding  threw  more 
light  on  his  author  than  all  his  pre¬ 
decessors  had  done.’  Malone’s  Shake¬ 
speare ,  ed.  1821,  i.  245.  ‘Johnson’s 
preface  and  notes  are  distinguished 
by  clearness  of  thought  and  diction, 
and  by  masterly  common  sense.’  Cam- 
btddge  Shakespeare ,  i.  Preface,  p.  36. 

‘In 


1  ‘  Then  taking  his  black  staff 

he  call’d  his  man, 

And  rous’d  himself  as  much 
as  rouse  himself  he  can.’ 

Canto  i.  24. 

2  On  April  16,  1757,  he  wrote  : — 
‘The  subscription,  though  it  does 
not  quite  equal  perhaps  my  utmost 
hope,  for  when  was  hope  not  dis¬ 
appointed  ? — yet  goes  on  tolerably.’ 
Letters ,  i.  73.  See  also  ib.  i.  124, 
n.  2,  and  ante ,  ii.  320. 

3  ‘  Queen’s  Square  is  an  area  of  a 
peculiar  kind,  it  being  left  open  on 
one  side  for  the  sake  of  the  beautiful 
landscape  formed  by  the  hills  of 
Highgate  and  Hampstead,  together 
with  the  adjacent  fields.  A  delicacy 
worthy  [of  imitation].’  Dodsley’s 
London ,  1761,  v.  240.  See  also  ante, 
ii.  51  n. 

4  In  his  Proposals  Johnson  said  : — 
‘  The  editor  will  endeavour  to  read 
the  books  which  the  author  read, 
to  trace  his  knowledge  to  its  source, 
and  compare  his  copies  with  their 
originals.’  Works,  v.  100. 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


359 


4  In  every  work  regard  the  writer’s  end ; 

For  none  can  compass  more  than  they  intend1.’ 

It  looks  forwards  and  backwards  almost  at  the  same  time.  Like 
the  nightingale  in  Strada,  4  it  hits  imperfect  accents  here  and 
there2.’  Hawkesworth,  one  of  the  Johnsonian  school 3,  upon  being 
asked,  whether  Johnson  was  a  happy  man,  by  a  gentleman  who 
had  been  just  introduced  to  him,  and  wanted  to  know  every  thing 
about  him,  confessed,  that  he  looked  upon  him  as  a  most  miserable 
being.  The  moment  of  enquiry  was  probably  about  the  time 
he  lost  his  wife,  and  sent  for  Hawkesworth,  in  the  most  earnest 

manner,  to  come  and  give  him  consolation  and  his  company4. - 

4  And  skreen  me  from  the  ills  of  life !  *  is  the  conclusion  of  his 
sombrous  poem  on  November5.  In  happier  moments  (for  who  is 


1  4  Since  none,’  &c. 

Pope,  Essay  on  Criticism,  1.  255. 

2  Addison,  in  The  Guardian ,  No. 
1 19,  describes  how  in  Strada’ s  Pro¬ 
lusions  4  Claudian  had  chosen  for  his 
subject  the  famous  contest  between 
the  nightingale  and  the  lutanist, 
which  every  one  is  acquainted  with, 
especially  since  Mr.  Phillips  has  so 
finely  improved  that  hint  in  one  of 
his  Pastorals.’  In  this  Pastoral  (No. 
v)  is  found  the  line  : — 

4  And  adds  in  sweetness  what  she 
wants  in  strength.’ 

3  4  Hawkesworth  was  Johnson’s 
closest  imitator.’  Life,  i.  252,  Courte¬ 
nay,  in  his  Lines  on  Johnson ,  says  : — 

4  By  nature’s  gifts  ordain’d  man¬ 

kind  to  rule, 

He,  like  a  Titian,  form’d  his 
brilliant  school. 


Ingenious  Hawkesworth  to  this 
school  we  owe, 

And  scarce  the  pupil  from  the 
tutor  know.’ 

In  this  school  he  places  also  Gold¬ 
smith,  Reynolds,  Burney,  Malone, 
Steevens,  Jones  and  Boswell.  Life , 
i.  222.  All  of  Johnson’s  school,  ac¬ 


cording  to  Reynolds,  4  were  distin¬ 
guished  for  a  love  of  truth  and  ac¬ 
curacy,  which  they  would  not  have 
possessed  in  the  same  degree  if  they 
had  not  been  acquainted  with  John¬ 
son.’  lb.  iii.  230.  See  ante,  ii.  227. 

4  4  He  deposited  the  remains  of 
Mrs.  Johnson  in  the  church  of  Brom¬ 
ley,  in  Kent,  to  which  he  was  probably 
led  by  the  residence  of  his  friend 
Hawkesworth  at  that  place.’  Life, 
i.  241  ;  ante ,  i.  399. 

5  The  Winter’s  Walk  is  the  name 
of  the  poem.  4  It  is  remarkable,  that 
in  this  first  edition  of  The  Wmter's 
Walk ,  the  concluding  line  is  much 
more  Johnsonian  than  it  was  after¬ 
wards  printed ;  for  in  subsequent 
editions,  after  praying  Stella  to 
44  snatch  him  to  her  arms,”  he  says, 

44  And  shield  me  from  the  ills  of 
life.” 

Whereas  in  the  first  edition  it  is 

44  And  hide  me  from  the  sight  of 
life.”  ’  Life ,  i.  179. 

The  Winter’s  Walk,  I  feel  sure, 
is  not  by  Johnson,  though  he  may 
have  supplied  Hawkesworth,  who 
probably  wrote  it,  with  a  line  or  two. 
Ib.  p.  178,  n.  2. 


not 


360  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


not  subject  to  every  skyey  influence,  and  the  evil  of  the  hour 1  ?) 
he  would  argue,  and  prove  it  in  a  sort  of  dissertation,  that  there 
was,  generally  and  individually,  more  of  natural  and  moral  good, 
than  of  the  contrary2.  He  asserted,  that  no  man  could  pronounce 
he  did  not  feel  more  pleasure  than  misery.  Every  body  would 
not  answer  in  the  affirmative ;  for  an  ounce  of  pain  outweighs 
a  pound  of  pleasure.  There  are  people  who  wish  they  had  never 
been  born — to  whom  life  is  a  disease — and  whose  apprehensions 
of  dying  pains  and  of  futurity  embitter  every  thing.  The  reader 
must  not  think  it  impertinent  to  remark,  that  Johnson  did  not 
choose  to  pass  his  whole  life  in  celibacy.  Perhaps  the  raising 
up  a  posterity  may  be  a  debt  and  duty  all  men  owe  to  those  who 
have  lived  before  them.  Johnson  had  a  daughter,  who  died  before 
its  mother,  if  this  pen  is  not  mistaken 3.  When  these  were 
gone,  he  lost  his  hold  on  life,  for  he  never  married  again.  He 
has  expressed  a  surprize  that  Sir  Isaac  Newton  continued  totally 
unacquainted  with  the  female  sex,  which  is  asserted  by  Voltaire, 
from  the  information  of  Cheselden 4,  and  is  admitted  to  be  true. 
For  curiosity,  the  first  and  most  durable  of  the  passions,  might 
have  led  him  to  overcome  that  inexperience.  This  pen  may  as 
well  finish  this  last  point  in  the  words  of  Fontenelle,  that  Sir 
Isaac  never  was  married,  and  perhaps  never  had  time  to  think 
of  it 5.  Whether  the  sun-shine  of  the  world  upon  our  author 
raised  his  drooping  spirits,  or  that  the  lenient  hand  of  time  re¬ 
moved  something  from  him,  or  that  his  health  meliorated  by 
mingling  more  with  the  croud  of  mankind,  or  not,  he  however 
apparently  acquired  more  chearfulness,  and  became  more  fit  for 


1  £  A  breath  thou  art, 
Servile  to  all  the  skiey  influences 
That  do  this  habitation  where 

thou  keep’st 
Hourly  afflict.’ 

Measure  for  Measure ,  Act  iii.  sc.  i. 
1.  7.  F or  the  effect  of  ‘  the  skiey  in¬ 
fluences  ’  on  Johnson  see  Life ,  i. 
332. 

2  For  his  unhappy  thoughts  on  life 
see  ib .  i.  213,  331,  n.  6,  343  ;  ii.  125  ; 
iv.  300  ;  ante ,  ii.  256. 

3  He  never  had  a  child. 


4  CEuvres  de  Voltaire ,  ed.  1819, 
xxiv.  70. 

5  ‘  II  ne  s’est  point  marie,  et  peut- 
etre  n’a  t-il  pas  eu  le  loisir  d’y  penser 
jamais,  abimd  d’abord  dans  des 
etudes  profondes  et  continuelles  pen¬ 
dant  la  force  de  Page,  occupe  ensuite 
d’une  charge  importante,  et  meme 
de  sa  grande  consideration,  qui  ne 
lui  laissait  sentir  ni  vuide  dans  sa 
vie  ni  besoin  d’une  societe  domes- 
tique.5  Eloge  de  Newton ,  ed.  1728, 
p.  36. 


the 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


36r 


the  labours  of  life  and  his  literary  function  x.  But  he  certainly 
did  not  communicate  to  every  intruder  every  uneasy  sensation  of 
mind  and  body1 2.  Who,  it  may  be  asked,  can  determine  of  the 
pleasure  and  pain  of  others?  True  and  solemn  are  the  lines  of 
Prior,  in  his  Solomon  3 : 

‘  Who  breathes  must  suffer,  and  who  thinks  must  mourn ; 

And  he  alone  is  blest,  who  ne’er  was  born.’ 

Johnson  thought  he  had  no  right  to  complain  of  his  lot  in  life, 
or  of  having  been  disappointed :  the  world  had  not  used  him  ill : 
it  had  not  broke  its  word  with  him :  it  had  promised  him 
nothing :  he  aspired  to  no  elevation :  he  had  fallen  from  no 
height4.  Lord  Gower  endeavoured  to  obtain  for  him,  by  the 
interest  of  Swift,  the  mastership  of  a  grammar-school  of  small 
income,  for  which  Johnson  was  not  qualified  by  the  statutes  to 
become  a  candidate.  His  lordship’s  letter,  published  some  years 
ago,  is  to  the  honour  of  the  subject :  in  praise  of  his  abilities 
and  integrity,  and  in  commiseration  of  his  distressed  situation 5. 
Johnson  wished,  for  a  moment,  to  fill  the  chair  of  a  professor, 
at  Oxford,  then  become  vacant,  but  he  never  applied  for  it.  He 
was  offered  a  good  living,  by  Mr.  Langton,  if  he  would  accept  it, 
and  take  orders:  but  he  chose  not  to  put  off  his  lay  habit6. 
He  would  have  made  an  admirable  library-keeper 7 :  like 


1  ‘  It  pleased  God  to  grant  him 
almost  thirty  years  of  life,  after  this 
time  [the  death  of  his  wife] ;  and 
once,  when  he  was  in  a  placid  frame 
of  mind,  he  was  obliged  to  own  to 
me  that  he  had  enjoyed  happier 
days,  and  had  many  more  friends, 
since  that  gloomy  hour  than  before.’ 
Life ,  i.  299. 

2  Boswell,  writing  of  the  year  1769, 
says  : — ‘  His  Meditations  strongly 
prove  that  he  suffered  much  both  in 
body  and  mind.  .  .  .  Every  generous 
and  grateful  heart  .  .  .  now  that  his 
unhappiness  is  certainly  known,  must 
respect  that  dignity  of  character 
which  prevented  him  from  complain¬ 
ing.’  Ib.  ii.  66. 

3  Bk.  iii.  1.  240. 


4  ‘Johnson.  “Sir,  I  have  never 
complained  of  the  world,  nor  do  I 
think  that  I  have  reason  to  com¬ 
plain.”’  Life ,  iv.  1 16.  ‘The  world 
is  not  so  unjust  or  unkind  as  it  is 
peevishly  represented.’  Letters ,  ii. 
215.  See  also  ante,  i.  315. 

5  Ante,  i.  373  5  Life,  i.  133. 

6  Ante ,  ii.  107  ;  Life ,  i.  320. 

7  ‘  Mr.  Levet  this  day  shewed  me 
Dr.  Johnson’s  library,  which  was 
contained  in  two  garrets  over  his 
Chambers.  I  found  a  number  of 
good  books,  but  very  dusty  and  in 
great  confusion.  The  floor  was 
strewed  with  manuscript  leaves,  in 
Johnson’s  own  hand-writing.’  Life , 
i-  435- 


Casaubon 


362  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Casaubon,  Magliabechi,  or  Bentley1.  But  he  belonged  to  the 
world  at  large.  Talking  on  the  topic  of  what  his  inclinations  or 
faculties  might  have  led  him  to  have  been,  had  he  been  bred  to 
the  profession  of  the  law,  he  has  said  he  should  have  wished  for 
the  Office  of  Master  of  the  Rolls2.  He  gave  into  this  idea  in 
table-talk,  partly  serious  and  partly  jocose,  for  it  was  only 
a  manner  he  had  of  describing  himself  to  his  friends  without 
vanity  of  his  parts  (for  he  was  above  being  vain)  or  envy  of  the 
honourable  stations  engaged  by  other  men  of  merit.  He  would 
correct  any  compositions  of  his  friends  ( habes  confitenteni) 3,  and 
dictate  on  any  subject  on  which  they  wanted  information4.  He 
could  have  been  an  orator,  if  he  would 5.  On  account  of  his 
intimacy  with  Dr.  Dodd,  for  whom  he  made  a  bargain  with  the 
booksellers  for  his  edition  of  the  Bible,  he  wrote  a  petition  to  the 
Crown  for  mercy,  after  his  condemnation 6.  The  letter  he  com¬ 
posed  for  the  translator  of  Ariosto,  that  was  sent  to  Mr.  Hastings 
in  Bengal,  is  esteemed  a  master-piece7.  Dr.  Warton,  of  Win- 


1  Casaubon  was  King’s  Librarian 
in  Paris,  and  Bentley  in  London ; 
Magliabecchi  was  the  Grand  Duke’s 
Librarian  at  Florence. 

2  ‘  Sir  William  Scott  informs  me, 
that  upon  the  death  of  the  late  Lord 
Lichfield,  who  was  Chancellor  of  the 
University  of  Oxford,  he  said  to 
Johnson,  “  What  a  pity  it  is,  Sir,  that 
you  did  not  follow  the  profession  of 
the  law.  You  might  have  been  Lord 
Chancellor  of  Great  Britain,  and 
attained  to  the  dignity  of  the  peer¬ 
age  ;  and  now  that  the  title  of  Lich¬ 
field,  your  native  city,  is  extinct  you 
might  have  had  it.”  Johnson,  upon 
this,  seemed  much  agitated  ;  and,  in 
an  angry  tone,  exclaimed,  “  Why 
will  you  vex  me  by  suggesting  this, 
when  it  is  too  late  ?”  ’  Life,  iii. 
309- 

3  Ante ,  i.  332 ;  ii.  7.  Tyers  was 
the  author  of  two  or  three  books. 
‘  That  great  man  [Dr.  Johnson]  has 
acknowledged  behind  his  back  that 
“  Tyers  always  tells  him  something 


he  did  not  know  before.”’  Nichols, 
Literary  Anecdotes ,  viii.  88  n. 

4  See  Life ,  ii.  183, 196,  242,  372-3  ; 
iii.  200;  iv.  74,  129,  for  legal  argu¬ 
ments  dictated  to  Boswell. 

5  ‘  When  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  told 
him  that  Mr.  Edmund  Burke  had  said, 
that  if  he  had  come  early  into  par¬ 
liament,  he  certainly  would  have  been 
the  greatest  speaker  that  ever  was 
there,  Johnson  exclaimed,  “  I  should 
like  to  try  my  hand  now.”  .  .  .  Sir 
William  Scott  mentioned  that  John¬ 
son  had  told  him  that  he  had  several 
times  tried  to  speak  in  the  Society  of 
Arts  and  Sciences,  but  “  had  found 
he  could  not  get  on.”  ’  lb.  ii.  138. 

6  Dodd  published  in  1771  a  Com¬ 
mentary  on  the  Old  and  New  Testa¬ 
ment.  Johnson  had  been  but  once 
in  Dodd’s  company,  and  that  was  in 
1750.  Life,  iii.  140.  It  is  most  un¬ 
likely  that  he  made  any  bargain  for 
him.  For  his  petition  see  ib.  iii. 
142  ;  ante,  i.  432  ;  ii.  282. 

7  Life,  iv.  70. 


Chester 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


363 


Chester,  talked  of  it  as  the  very  best  he  ever  read.  He  could 
have  been  eminent,  if  he  chose  it,  in  letter  writing,  a  faculty  in 
which,  according  to  Sprat,  his  Cowley  excelled1.  His  epistolary 
and  confidential  correspondence  would  make  an  agreeable  publica¬ 
tion,  but  the  world  will  never  be  trusted  with  it 2.  He  wrote  as 
well  in  verse  as  in  prose.  Though  he  composed  so  harmoniously 
in  Latin  and  English,  he  had  no  ear  for  music  3 :  and  though  he 
lived  in  such  habits  of  intimacy  with  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  and 
once  intended  to  have  written  the  lives  of  the  painters,  he  had 
no  eye,  nor  perhaps  taste  for  a  picture,  nor  a  landscape4.  He 
renewed  his  Greek  some  years  ago,  for  which  he  found  no  occasion 
for  twenty  years.  He  owned  that  many  knew  more  Greek  than 
himself ;  but  that  his  grammar  would  show  he  had  once  taken 
pains.  Sir  William  Jones,  one  of  the  most  enlightened  of  the 
sons  of  men,  as  Johnson  described  him,  has  often  said,  he  knew 
a  great  deal  of  Greek5.  With  French  authors  he  was  familiar. 
He  had  lately  read  over  the  works  of  Boileau6.  He  passed 
a  judgment  on  Sherlock’s  French  and  English  letters,  and  told 
him  there  was  more  French  in  his  English,  than  English  in  his 
French7.  His  curiosity  would  have  led  him  to  read  Italian, 
even  if  Baretti  had  not  been  his  acquaintance8.  Latin  was  as 
natural  to  him  as  English.  He  seemed  to  know  the  readiest 


1  Johnson  says  of  Sprat’s  Life  of 
Cowley  that  ‘  his  zeal  of  friendship  or 
ambition  of  eloquence  has  produced 
a  funeral  oration  rather  than  a  his¬ 
tory.’  Works ,  vii.  I. 

2  Less  than  four  years  later  Mrs. 
Piozzi  published  more  than  300  of 
his  letters  ;  she  was  followed  in  three 
years  by  Boswell,  who  gave  nearly 
340  more.  There  are  now  more  than 
a  thousand  in  print. 

3  Ante ,  ii.  103. 

4  Ante ,  i.  214. 

5  Life ,  iv.  384 ;  ante ,  i.  183. 

6  Ante,  i.  334. 

7  Martin  Sherlock  first  published 
in  Italian  and  in  French  the  work 
which,  in  1781,  he  brought  out  in 
English  under  the  title  of  Letters 

of  an  English  Traveller  translated 


from  the  Fre?ich.  Horace  Walpole 
wrote  of  him  ( Letters ,  vii.  462)  : — 
‘His  Italian  is  ten  times  worse  than 
his  French,  and  more  bald.’ 

8  He  had  learnt  Italian  before  he 
knew  Baretti.  Life,  i.  115,  156.  He 
studied  it  also  later  in  life.  In  1776 
he  ‘  purposed  to  apply  vigorously  to 
study,  particularly  of  fhe  Greek  and 
Italian  tongues.’  Ante,  i.  77.  In 
1781  he  recorded  : — ‘  Having  prayed, 
I  purpose  to  employ  the  next  six 
weeks  upon  the  Italian  language  for 
my  settled  study.’  Ante,  i.  99.  Less 
than  four  months  before  his  death  he 
wrote  to  Sastres,the  Italian  master : — 
‘  I  have  hope  of  standing  the  Eng¬ 
lish  winter,  and  of  seeing  you,  and 
reading  Petrarch  at  Bolt  Court.’ 
Letters ,  ii.  417. 


road 


364  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


road  to  knowledge,  and  to  languages,  their  conductors.  He 
made  such  progress  in  Hebrew,  in  a  few  lessons,  that  surprized 
his  guide  in  that  tongue.  In  company  with  Dr.  Barnard  and  the 
fellows  at  Eton,  he  astonished  them  all  with  the  display  of  his 
critical,  classical,  and  prosodical  treasures,  and  also  himself,  for  he 
protested,  on  his  return,  he  did  not  know  he  was  so  rich x. 

Christopher  Smart  was  at  first  well  received  by  Johnson2. 
This  writer  owed  his  acquaintance  with  our  author,  which  lasted 
thirty  years,  to  the  introduction  of  that  bard.  Johnson,  whose 
hearing  was  not  always  good,  understood  he  called  him  by  the 
name  of  Thyer, 'that  eminent  scholar,  librarian  of  Manchester, 
and  a  Nonjuror.  This  mistake  was  rather  beneficial  than  other¬ 
wise  to  the  person  introduced.  Johnson  had  been  much  indis¬ 
posed  all  that  day,  and  repeated  a  psalm  he  had  just  translated, 
during  his  affliction,  into  Latin  verse,  and  did  not  commit  to 
paper.  For  so  retentive  was  the  memory  of  this  man,  that 
he  could  always  recover  whatever  he  lent  to  that  faculty. 
Smart  in  return  recited  some  of  his  own  Latin  compositions. 
He  had  translated  with  success,- and  to  Mr.  Pope’s  satisfaction , 
his  St.  Cecilian  Ode 3.  Come  when  you  would,  early  or  late, 
for  he  desired  to  be  called  from  bed,  when  a  visitor  was  at 
the  door ;  the  tea-table  was  sure  to  be  spread,  Te  veniente  die , 
Te  decedente 4. — With  tea  he  cheered  himself  in  the  morning, 
with  tea  he  solaced  himself  in  the  evening5;  for  in  these,  or  in 
equivalent  words,  he  exprest  himself  in  a  printed  letter  to  Jonas 
Han  way,  who  had  just  told  the  public  that  tea  was  the  ruin  of 
the  nation,  and  of  the  nerves  of  every  one  who  drank  it 6.  The 


1  For  Dr.  Barnard  see  ante ,  i.  168, 
and  for  the  invitation  given  to  John¬ 
son  to  visit  Eton,  Life ,  v.  97.  Bos1 
well  visited  the  College  in  1789. 
‘  I  was  asked  by  the  Headmaster  to 
dine  at  the  Fellows’  table,  and  made 
a  creditable  figure.  ...  I  had  my 
classical  quotations  very  ready.’  Ib. 
v.  15,  n.  5. 

2  Tyers  seems  to  imply  that  later 

on  Johnson  did  not  receive  Smart 

well.  At  all  events  he  befriended 

him.  Ib.  ii.  345. 


3  ‘  When  Smart  offered  himself  as 
a  candidate  for  a  university  scholar¬ 
ship  he  is  said  to  have  translated 
Pope’s  Ode  on  St.  Cecilia's  Day  into 
Latin.’  Chalmers’s  Biog.  Did.  xxviii. 
77- 

4  Virgil,  Georgies ,  iv.  466. 

5  ‘  Who  with  tea  amuses  the  even¬ 
ing,  with  tea  solaces  the  midnight, 
and  with  tea  welcomes  the  morning.’ 
Life,  i.  313,  n.  4. 

6  Ib.  i.  313. 

pun 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


365 


pun  upon  his  favourite  liquor  he  heard  with  a  smile.  Though 
his  time  seemed  to  be  bespoke,  and  quite  engrossed,  it  is  certain 
his  house  was  open  to  all  his  acquaintance,  new  and  old  x.  His 
amanuensis  has  given  up  his  pen,  the  printer’s  devil  has  waited 
on  the  stairs  for  a  proof  sheet,  and  the  press  has  often  stood  still. 
His  visitors  were  delighted  and  instructed.  No  subject  ever 
came  amiss  to  him.  He  could  transfer  his  thoughts  from  one 
thing  to  another  with  the  most  accommodating  facility.  He  had 
the  art,  for  which  Locke  was  famous,  of  leading  people  to  talk 
on  their  favourite  subjects,  and  on  what  they  knew  best 2.  By 
this  he  acquired  a  great  deal  of  information.  What  he  once 
heard  he  rarely  forgot.  They  gave  him  their  best  conversation, 
and  he  generally  made  them  pleased  with  themselves,  for 
endeavouring  to  please  him.  Poet  Smart  used  to  relate,  £  that ' 
the  first  conversation  with  him  was  of  such  variety  and  length, 
that  it  began  with  poetry  and  ended  at  fluxions.’  He  always 
talked  as  if  he  was  talking  upon  oath 3.  He  was  the  wisest 
person,  and  had  the  most  knowledge  in  ready  cash 4,  this  writer 
had  the  honour  to  be  acquainted  with — Here  a  little  pause  must 
be  endured.  The  poor  hand  that  holds  the  pen  is  benumbed  by 
the  frost  as  much  as  by  a  torpedo 5.  It  is  cold  within,  by  the 


1  ‘Johnson,  during  the  whole  course 
of  his  life,  had  no  shyness,  real  or 
affected,  but  was  easy  of  access  to 
all  who  were  properly  recommended, 
and  even  wished  to  see  numbers  at 
his  levee,  as  his  morning  circle  of 
company  might,  with  strict  pro¬ 
priety,  be  called.’  Life ,  i.  247. 

2  £  Locke  felt  pleasure  in  conversing 
with  all  sorts  of  people,  and  tried  to 
profit  by  their  information,  which 
arose  .  .  .  from  the  opinion  he  enter¬ 
tained  that  there  was  nobody  from 
whom  something  useful  could  not  be 
got.  And  indeed  by  this  means  he 
had  learned  so  many  things  concern¬ 

ing  the  arts  and  trade,  that  he 
seemed  to  have  made  them  his  par¬ 

ticular  study.’  King’s  Life  of  Locke, 
ed.  1858,  p.  271. 

‘  Johnson.  “  Mrs.Thrale’s  mother 


said  of  me  what  flattered  me  much. 
A  clergyman  was  complaining  of 
want  of  society  in  the  country  where 
he  lived ;  and  said,  £  They  talk  of 
runts (that  is,  young  cows).  1  Sir, 
(said  Mrs.  Salusbury,)  Mr.  Johnson 
would  learn  to  talk  of  runts.’  ”  ’  Life, 
iii-  337- 

Tyers  forgets  to  record  his  own 
description  of  Johnson’s  talk.  ‘Torn 
Tyers  described  me  the  best : — ££  Sir 
(said  he)  you  are  like  a  ghost;  you 
never  speak  till  you  are  spoken  to.”  ’ 
Lb.  iii.  307  ;  aitte,  i.  290. 

3  Life,  ii.  434  ;  ante,  i.  458. 

4  Life,  ii.  256. 

5  £  Tom  Birch  is  as  brisk  as  a  bee 
in  conversation  ;  but  no  sooner  does 
he  take  a  pen  in  his  hand,  than  it 
becomes  a  torpedo  to  him,  and  be¬ 
numbs  all  his  faculties.5  Lb.  i.  159. 

fire-side 


366  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


fire-side,  and  a  white  world  abroad  x.  His  reader  has  a  moment’s 
leisure  to  censure  or  commend  the  harvest  of  anecdote  that  is 
brought  in,  for  his  sake;  and  if  he  has  more  reading  than  usual, 
may  remark  for  or  against  it  in  the  manner  of  the  Cardinal  to 
Ariosto  :  ‘  All  this  may  be  true,  extraordinary,  and  entertaining  ; 
but  where  the  deuce  did  you  pick  it  all  up1 2?’  The  writer  perhaps 
comes  within  the  proverbial  observation,  that  the  inquisitive 
person  ends  often  in  the  character  of  the  tell-tale.  Johnson's 
advice  was  consulted  on  all  occasions.  He  was  known  to  be 
a  good  casuist3,  and  therefore  had  many  cases  for  his  judgment 4. 
It  is  notorious,  that  some  men  had  the  wickedness  to  over-reach 
him,  and  to  injure  him.  till  they  were  found  out.  Lauder  was  of 
the  number,  who  made,  at  the  time,  all  the  friends  of  Milton 
•  his  enemies 5.  There  is  nobody  so  likely  to  be  imposed  upon  as 
a  good  man.  His  conversation,  in  the  judgment  of  several,  was 
thought  to  be  equal  to  his  correct  writings 6.  Perhaps  the  tongue 
will  throw  out  more  animated  expressions  than  the  pen.  He  said 
the  most  common  things  in  the  newest  manner.  He  always 
commanded  attention  and  regard.  His  person,  though  un¬ 
adorned  with  dress,  and  even  deformed  by  neglect,  made  you 
expect  something,  and  you  was  hardly  ever  disappointed.  His 
manner  was  interesting ;  the  tone  of  his  voice  and  the  sincerity 
of  his  expressions,  even  when  they  did  not  captivate  your 
affections,  or  carry  conviction,  prevented  contempt.  It  must 
be  owned,  his  countenance,  on  some  occasions,  resembled  too 
much  the  medallic  likeness  of  Magliabechi,  as  exhibited  before 
the  printed  account  of  him  by  Mr.  Spence7.  No  man  dared  to 


1  Tyers  wrote  bis  narrative  directly 
after  Johnson’s  death.  For  ‘the 
white  world  ’  see  Letters ,  ii.  433. 

2  ‘Je  ne  sais  quel  plaisant  a  fait 
courir  le  premier  ce  mot  pretendu 
du  Cardinal  d’Este  :  Messer  Lodovico, 
dove  avete  pigliato  tanie  coglio- 
nerieV  CEuvres  de  Voltaire ,  ed. 
1819,  xxxv.  434. 

3  For  his  casuistry  in  the  defence 

of  duelling  see  Life ,  ii.  179,  226;  iv. 

21 1  ;  and  of  dining  with  two  Bishops 

in  Passion  Week,  ib.  iv.  88. 


4  Ante,  i.  300. 

5  Ante,  i.  393. 

6  Life,  ii.  95,  n.  2 ;  iv.  236 ;  ante , 
i.  348. 

7  ‘  Magliabechi  had  almost  the  air 
of  a  savage,  and  even  affected  it ; 
together  with  a  cynical  or  contemp¬ 
tuous  smile.’  Spence’s  Parallel. 
See  Fugitive  Pieces  on  Various  Sub¬ 
jects,  ed.  1761,  ii.  332,  where  the 
likeness  is  given.  ‘  Magliabechi’s 
nose  was  aquiline,  and  his  face 
generally  drawn  into  a  kind  of  cynical 

take 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


367 


take  liberties  with  him,  nor  flatly  contradict  him  ;  for  he  could 
repell  any  attack,  having  always  about  him  the  weapons  of 
ridicule,  of  wit,  and  of  argument x.  It  must  be  owned,  that  some 
who  had  the  desire  to  be  admitted  to  him,  thought  him  too 
dogmatical,  and  as  exacting  too  much  homage  to  his  opinions, 
and  came  no  more.  For  they  said,  while  he  presided  in  his 
library,  surrounded  by  his  admirers,  he  would,  e  like  Cato,  give 
his  little  senate  laws2.’  He  had  great  knowledge  in  the  science 
of  human  nature,  and  of  the  fashions  and  customs  of  life,  and 
knew  the  world  well.  He  had  often  in  his  mouth  this  line 
of  Pope, 

‘The  proper  study  of  mankind  is  man3.’ 

He  was  desirous  of  surveying  life  in  all  its  modes  and  forms,  and 
in  all  climates.  Twenty  years  ago  he  offered  to  attend  his 
friend  Vansittart  to  India,  who  was  invited  there  to  make 
a  fortune  ;  but  it  did  not  take  place 4.  He  talked  much  of 
travelling  into  Poland,  to  observe  the  life  of  the  Palatines 5,  the 


grin.’  GentlemaJi's  Magazine ,  1759, 
p.  52.  See  also  ante ,  ii.  87,  141. 

1  ‘  When  exasperated  by  contra¬ 
diction  Johnson  was  apt  to  treat  his 
opponents  with  too  much  acrimony, 
as  “  Sir,  you  don’t  see  your  way 
through  that  question.” — “  Sir,  you 
talk  the  language  of  ignorance.”  ’ 
Life,  ii.  122.  Boswell  records  how 
Johnson,  ‘determined  to  be  master 
of  the  field,  had  recourse  to  the  de¬ 
vice  which  Goldsmith  imputed  to 
him  in  the  witty  words  of  one  of 
Cibber’s  comedies :  “  There  is  no 
arguing  with  Johnson  ;  for  when  his 
pistol  misses  fire,  he  knocks  you 
down  with  the  butt  end  of  it.”  ’  lb.  ii. 
100.  See  also  ib.  iv.  274 ;  v.  292. 
Goldsmith  referred  to  the  following 
passage  in  The  Refusal ,  Act  i.  sc.  1 
(Colley  Cibbers  Plays ,  ed.  1777,  iv. 
22)  : — 

‘  Granger.  “  Pr’ythee,  IVitling, 
does  not  thy  Assurance  sometimes 
meet  with  a  Repartee,  that  only  lights 


upon  the  Outside  of  thy  Head?” 

‘Witling.  “  O  !  your  Servant,  Sir. 
What  !  now  your  Fire’s  gone,  you 
would  knock  me  down  with  the  Butt- 
end,  would  you  ?  ”  ’ 

2  Pope,  Pralogue  to  the  Satires , 
1.  209. 

3  Essay  on  Man ,  ii.  2. 

4  See  Life ,  iii.  20,  where  Johnson 
tells  a  story  of  a  friend  who  ‘got 
a  considerable  appointment  [in  the 
East  Indies].  I  had  some  intention 
of  accompanying  him.  Had  I  thought 
then  as  I  do  now,  I  ‘should  have 
gone.’  In  1769  Mr.  Vansittart  was 
sent  to  India  with  two  others  as 
Supervisors.  Their  ship  was  lost  on 
the  way  and  nothing  was  ever  known 
of  their  fate.  Annual  Register ,  1769, 
i-  53;  1773,  i-  66. 

5  ‘  The  Palatines  and  Castellans 
were  governors  of  the  palatinates  or 
provinces,  and  held  the  office  for 
life ;  the  palatine  having  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  the  whole  province,  like  our 

account 


368  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


account  of  which  struck  his  curiosity  very  much.  His  Rasselas 
it  is  reported,  he  wrote  to  raise  a  purse  of  pecuniary  assistance  to 
his  aged  mother  at  Lichfield  L  The  first  title  of  his  manuscript, 
was  Prince  of  Ethiopia 2.  Mr.  Bruce  is  expected  to  give  us 
a  history  of  both  these  countries  3.  The  Happy  valley  he  would 
hardly  be  able  to  find  in  Abyssinia.  Dr.  Young  used  to  say, 
that  ‘  Rasselas  was  a  lamp  of  wisdom  V  He  there  displays  an 
uncommon  capacity  for  remark,  and  makes  the  best  use  of  the 
description  of  travellers.  It  is  an  excellent  romance.  But  his 
journey  into  the  Western  Islands  is  an  original  thing.  He  hoped, 
as  he  said,  when  he  came  back,  that  no  Scotchman  had  any  right 
to  be  angry  with  what  he  wrote 5.  It  is  a  book  written  without 
the  assistance  of  books.  He  said,  ‘  it  was  his  wish  and  endeavour 
not  to  make  a  single  quotation6.’  His  curiosity  must  have  been 
excessive,  and  his  strength  undecayed  to  accomplish  a  journey  of 
such  length,  and  subject  to  such  inconvenience.  His  book  was 
eagerly  read.  One  of  the  first  men  of  the  age7  told  Mr.  Garrick, 
‘that  he  would  forgive  Johnson  all  his  wrong  notions  respecting 
America,  on  account  of  his  writing  that  book.’  He  thought 
himself  the  hardier  for  travelling.  He  took  a  tour  into  France8, 
and  meditated  another  into  Italy 9  or  Portugal,  for  the  sake  of 
the  climate.  But  Dr.  Brocklesby,  his  friend  and  physician  (and 
who  that  knows  him  can  wish  for  more  companionable  and 
more  professional  knowledge?)  conjured  him,  by  every  argument 


lord-lieutenant,  the  castellan  of  a 
district.’  Morfill’s  Poland ,  p.  346. 

For  Johnson’s  love  of  travelling 
see  Life ,  iii.  449. 

r  lb.  i.  341  ;  ante ,  i.  285,  415. 

2  Johnson  wrote  to  Mr.  Strahan  : 
— ‘  The  title  will  be  “  The  Choice 
of  Life  or  The  History  of .  .  .  Prince 
of  Abissinia.”  Letters ,  i.  79. 

3  Though  Bruce  had  returned  to 
England  in  1774  he  did  not  publish 
his  Ti'avels  till  1790.  Ante ,  i.  365  n. ; 
ii.  12. 

4  Young  greatly  admired  the  Ram¬ 
bler.  Life ,  i.  215. 

5  lb.  ii.  306  ;  a?ite,  i.  430. 

6  Of  Swift  Johnson  wrote: — 4  It 


was  said  in  a  preface  to  one  of  the 
Irish  editions  that  Swift  had  never 
been  known  to  take  a  single  thought 
from  any  writer,  ancient  or  modem. 
This  is  not  literally  true ;  but  per¬ 
haps  no  writer  can  easily  be  found 
that  has  borrowed  so  little,  or  that 
in  all  his  excellencies  and  all  his 
defects  has  so  well  maintained  his 
claim  to  be  considered  as  original.’ 
Works,  viii.  228. 

Johnson’s  book  has  the  same  claim 
to  originality. 

7  Perhaps  Burke,  who  praised  the 
book.  Ante,  ii.  6. 

8  Life ,  ii.  389. 

9  lb.  ii.  428  ;  iv.  326  ;  ante,  i.  263. 


in 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


369 


in  his  power,  not  to  go  abroad  in  the  state  of  his  health 1 ;  but 
that  if  he  was  resolved  on  the  first,  and  wished  for  something 
additional  to  his  income,  desired  he  would  permit  him  to  accom¬ 
modate  him  out  of  his  fortune  with  one  hundred  pounds  a-year, 
during  his  travels,  to  be  paid  by  instalments 2. 

‘Ye  little  stars  hide  your  diminished  heads3.’ 

The  reply  to  this  generosity  was  to  this  effect :  ‘  That  he  would 
not  be  obliged  to  any  person’s  liberality,  but  to  his  King’s4/ 
The  continuance  of  this  design  to  go  abroad,  occasioned  the 
application  for  an  increase  of  pension,  that  is  so  honourable  to 
those  who  applied  for  it,  and  to  the  Lord  Chancellor  who  gave  him 
leave  to  draw  on  his  banker  for  any  sum 5.  With  the  courage  of 
a  man,  Johnson  demanded  to  know  of  Brocklesby  if  his  recovery 
was  impossible  ?  Being  answered  in  the  affirmative  ;  ‘  then,’  says 
he,  ‘  I  will  take  no  more  opium,  and  give  up  my  physicians  V 
At  last  he  said,  ‘  if  I  am  worse,  I  cannot  go,  if  I  am  better 
I  need  not  go,  but  if  I  continue  neither  better  nor  worse,  I  am  as 
well  where  I  am/  The  writer  of  this  sketch  could  wish  to  have 
committed  to  memory  or  paper  all  the  wise  and  sensible  things 
that  dropped  from  his  lips.  If  the  one  could  have  been  Xeno¬ 
phon,  the  other  was  a  Socrates. — His  benevolence  to  mankind 
was  known  to  all  who  knew  him.  Though  so  declared  a  friend 
to  the  Church  of  England  and  even  a  friend  to  the  Convocation7, 


1  ‘  My  journey  to  the  continent  .  .  . 
was  never  much  encouraged  by  my 
physicians.’  Life ,  iv.  349. 

2  ‘As  an  instance  of  extraordinary 
liberality  of  friendship,  he  told  us,  that 
Dr.  Brocklesby  had  upon  this  occa¬ 
sion  offered  him  a  hundred  a  year  for 
his  life.  A  grateful  tear  started  into 
his  eye,  as  he  spoke  this  in  a  falter¬ 
ing  tone.’  Ib.  iv.  338.  See  ib.  n.  2 
for  Brocklesby’s  ‘  liberality  of  friend¬ 
ship  ’  towards  Burke,  and  ante ,  i.  443. 

‘  At  whose  sight  all  the  stars 
Hide  their  diminish’d  heads.’ 

Paradise  Lost ,  iv.  34. 

‘Ye  little  stars!  hide  your 
diminish’d  rays.’ 

Pope,  Moral  Essay sy  iii.  282. 

VOL.  II.  B  b 


4  Windham  says  [post,  p.  388 ), 
that  when  Dr.  Brocklesby  made  this 
offer  ‘  Johnson  pressed  his  hands  and 
said,  “  God  bless  you  through  Jesus 
Christ,  but  I  will  take  no  money 
but  from  my  sovereign.”  This,  if 
I  mistake  not,  was  told  the  King 
through  West.’ 

5  Ante,  i.  442. 

6  Life,  iv.  415. 

This  was  a  few  days  before  his 
death.  Tyers  in  the  next  paragraph 
returns  to  the  project  of  the  visit  to 
Italy  formed  some  months  earlier. 

7  Ib.  i.  464  ;  iv.  277. 

Smollett,  after  describing  the  meet¬ 
ing  of  Convocation  in  1717,  con¬ 
tinues  : — ‘  The  Convocation  has  not 

it 


370  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


it  assuredly  was  not  in  his  wish  to  persecute  for  speculative 
notions1.  He  used  to  say  he  had  no  quarrel  with  any  order  of 
men,  unless  they  disbelieved  in  revelation  and  a  future  state2. 
He  would  indeed  have  sided  with  Sacheverell  against  Daniel 
Burgess3,  if  he  thought  the  Church  was  in  danger.  His  hand 
and  his  heart  were  always  open  to  charity.  The  objects  under 
his  own  roof  were  only  a  few  of  the  subjects  for  relief.  He  was 
at  the  head  of  subscription  in  cases  of  distress.  His  guinea,  as 
he  said  of  another  man  of  a  bountiful  disposition,  was  always 
ready.  He  wrote  an  exhortation  to  public  bounty.  He  drew 
up  a  paper  to  recommend  the  French  prisoners,  in  the  last  war 
but  one,  to  the  English  benevolence4 ;  which  was  of  service.  He 
implored  the  hand  of  benevolence  for  others 5 ;  even  when  he 
almost  seemed  a  proper  object  of  it  himself. 

Like  his  hero  Savage,  while  in  company  with  him,  he  is 
supposed  to  have  formerly  strolled  about  the  streets  almost  house¬ 
less  6,  and  as  if  he  was  obliged  to  go  without  the  cheerful  meal 
of  the  day,  or  to  wander  about  for  one,  as  is  reported  of  Homer. 


been  permitted  to  sit  and  do  business 
since  that  period.’  History  of  Eng- 
land ,  ed.  1800,  ii.  358. 

4  The  practice  continues  to  the 
present  day  [1837]  of  summoning 
the  clergy  to  meet  in  convocation 
whenever  a  new  parliament  is  called, 
and  the  forms  of  election  are  gone 
through.  ...  It  is  the  usual  practice 
for  the  King  to  prorogue  the  meeting 
when  it  is  about  to  proceed  to  any 
business.’  Penny  Cyclopaedia ,  1837, 
vii.  489. 

‘  The  spirituality  at  last  aroused 
itself  from  its  long  repose  in  1852. .  . . 
The  first  action  of  Convocation  as 
a  deliberative  body  commenced  in 
1861.’  Encyclopaedia  Brita7inica , 
9th  ed.,  vi.  329. 

1  ‘  In  short,  Sir,  I  have  got  no 
further  than  this  :  Every  man  has 
a  right  to  utter  what  he  thinks  truth, 
and  every  other  man  has  a  right  to 
knock  him  down  for  it.  Martyrdom 


is  the  test.’  Lfe ,  iv.  12.  See  also 
ib .  ii.  250,  254. 

2  ‘  Every  man  who  attacks  my 
belief,  diminishes  in  some  degree  my 
confidence  in  it,  and  therefore  makes 
me  uneasy  ;  and  I  am  angry  with 
him  who  makes  me  uneasy.’  Ib. 
iii.  10. 

3  Ib.  i.  39.  Hearne  recorded  on 
March  4,  1709-10: — ‘The  mob  are 
so  zealous  for  Dr.  Sacheverell  that 
they  have  pulled  down  several  meet¬ 
ing-houses  of  the  dissenters  in  Lon¬ 
don,  amongst  which  is  the  meeting¬ 
house  of  that  old  presbyterian  rogue 
Daniel  Burgess.’  Reliquiae  Her- 
?iianae,  1869,  i.  187.  See  The  Tatler, 
No.  66  (by  Swift),  where  Burgess  is 
ridiculed. 

4  Life, ,  i.  353. 

5  Ib.  ii.  379;  iii.  124;  iv.  283, 
408  7i.  ;  Letters ,  ii.  64,  66,  113. 

6  Life ,  i.  162  ;  ante ,  i.  371. 


If 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


371 


If  this  were  true,  it  is  no  wonder  if  he  was  an  unknown,  or 
uninquired  after  for  a  long  time : 

‘  Slow  rises  worth  by  poverty  depressed  V 

When  once  distinguished,  as  he  observes  of  Ascham,  he  gained 
admirers1 2.  He  was  fitted  by  nature  for  a  critic.  His  Lives  of 
the  Poets  (like  all  his  biographical  pieces)  are  well  written. 
He  gives  us  the  pulp  without  the  husks.  He  has  told  their 
personal  history  very  well.  But  every  thing  is  not  new.  Perhaps 
what  Mr.  Steevens  helped  him  to,  has  increased  the  number 
of  the  best  anecdotes 3.  But  his  criticisms  of  their  works  are  of 
the  most  worth,  and  the  greatest  novelty.  His  perspicacity  was 
very  extraordinary.  He  was  able  to  take  measure  of  every 
intellectual  object,  and  to  see  all  round  it.  If  he  chose  to 
plume  himself  as  an  author,  he  might  on  account  of  the  gift  of 
intuition, 

‘  The  brightest  feather  in  the  eagle’s  wing.’ 


He  has  been  censured  for  want  of  taste  or  good  nature  in  what 
he  says  of  Prior4,  Gray5,  Lyttelton6,  Hammond7,  and  others,  and 
to  have  praised  some  pieces  that  nobody  thought  highly  of.  It 
was  a  fault  in  our  critic  too  often  to  take  occasion  to  show  him¬ 
self  superior  to  his  subject,  and  also  to  trample  upon  it.  There 
is  no  talking  about  taste.  Perhaps  Johnson,  who  spoke  from 
his  last  feelings,  forgot  those  of  his  youth.  The  love  verses  of 
Waller  and  others  have  no  charms  for  old  age.  Even  Prior’s 
Henry  and  Emma ,  which  pleased  the  old  and  surly  Dennis8, 


1  Johnson’s  London ,  1.  121. 

Goldsmith  wrote  to  his  brother 

Henry  in  1759  : — 4  The  greatest  merit 
in  a  state  of  poverty  would  only  serve 
to  make  the  possessor  ridiculous — 
may  distress  but  cannot  relieve  him. 
Frugality,  and  even  avarice,  in  the 
lower  orders  of  mankind,  are  true 
ambition.’  Prior’s  Goldsmith ,  i.  300. 

2  ‘  A  man  once  distinguished  soon 
gains  admirers.’  Works ,  vi.  512. 

3  ‘  Mr.  Steevens  appears,  from  the 

papers  in  my  possession,  to  have 

supplied  him  with  some  anecdotes 

and  quotations.’  Life ,  iv.  37. 


4  Cowper  wrote  soon  after  the 
publication  of  the  Lives  : — ‘  Prior’s 
reputation  as  an  author,  who,  with 
much  labour  indeed,  but  with  ad¬ 
mirable  success,  has  embellished  all 
his  poems  with  the  most  charming 
verse,  stood  unshaken  till  Johnson 
thrust  his  head  against  it.’  Cowper’s 
Works,  ed.  1836,  iv.  175. 

5  Ante ,  i.  479. 

6  Ante ,  i.  257  ;  ii.  193. 

7  Life,  v.  268. 

8  Dennis  was  only  seven  years 
older  than  Prior. 

‘  Mrs.  Thrale  disputed  with  Dr. 

had 


B  b  2 


372  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


had  no  charms  for  him.  Of  Gray  he  always  spoke  as  he  wrote, 
and  called  his  poetry  artificial1.  If  word  and  thought  go  together 
the  odes  of  Gray  were  not  to  the  satisfaction  of  our  critic.  But 
what  composition  can  stand  this  sharp-sighted  critic  ?  He  made 
some  fresh  observations  on  Milton,  by  placing  him  in  a  new  point 
of  view :  and  if  he  has  shown  more  of  his  excellencies  than 
Addison  does,  he  accompanies  them  with  more  defects.  He 
took  no  critic  from  the  shelf,  neither  Aristotle,  Bossu,  nor 
Boileau.  He  hardly  liked  to  quote,  much  more  to  steal.  He 
drew  his  judgments  from  the  principles  of  human  nature,  of 
which  the  Rambler  is  full,  before  the  Elements  of  Criticism , 
by  Lord  Karnes 2,  made  their  appearance. 

It  may  be  inserted  here,  that  Johnson,  soon  after  his  coming 
to  London,  had  thought  of  writing  a  History  of  the  revival  of 
Learning3.  The  booksellers  had  other  service  to  offer  him4. 
But  he  never  undertook  it.  The  proprietors  of  the  Universal 
History 5  wished  him  to  take  any  part  in  that  voluminous  work. 
But  he  declined  their  offer.  His  last  employers  wanted  him  to 
undertake  the  life  of  Spenser6.  But  he  said  Warton  had  left 


Johnson  on  the  merit  of  Prior.  He 
attacked  him  powerfully ;  said  he 
wrote  of  love  like  a  man  who  had 
never  felt  it :  his  love  verses  were 
college  verses  ;  and  he  repeated  the 
song  “  Alexis  shunn’d  his  fellow 
swains,”  &c.,  in  so  ludicrous  a  man¬ 
ner,  as  to  make  us  all  wonder  how 
any  one  could  have  been  pleased 
with  such  fantastical  stuff.’  Life ,  ii.  78. 

‘  The  greatest  of  all  Prior’s  amorous 
essays  is  Henry  and  Emma  ;  a  dull 
and  tedious  dialogue.’  Works,  viii.  16. 

1  Ante,  i.  191 ;  ii.  52,  320 ;  Life ,  i. 
402  ;  ii.  164,  327,  334;  iv.  13. 

2  Life,  i.  393  ;  ii.  89. 

3  lb .  iv.  381,  n.  1. 

4  ‘The  booksellers  gave  it  out  as 
a  piece  of  literary  news,  that  he  had 
an  inclination  to  translate  the  Lives 
of  Plutai'ch  from  the  Greek.  It 
appears  from  his  literary  memoran¬ 
dum-book  that  this  was  one  of  the 


tasks  he  assigned  himself.’  Gentle¬ 
man's  Magazine,  1785,  p.  86. 

‘Among  Johnson’s  papers  was 
found  a  translation  from  Sallust  of 
the  Bellum  Catilinarium ,  so  flatly 
and  insipidly  rendered  that  the 
suffering  it  to  appear  would  have 
been  an  indelible  disgrace  to  his 
memory.’  Hawkins,  p.  541. 

5  Letters ,  ii.  432. 

6  His  ‘last  employers’  were  the 
proprietors  of  the  Lives. 

See  ante ,  ii.  192,  where  Hannah 
More  records: — ‘Johnson  told  me 
he  had  been  with  the  King  that 
morning,  who  enjoined  him  to  add 
Spenser  to  his  Lives  of  the  Poet  si 

He  told  Nichols,  who  asked  him 
‘  to  favour  the  world,  and  gratify  his 
sovereign,  by  a  Life  of  Spenser,  that 
he  would  readily  have  done  so  had  he 
been  able  to  obtain  any  new  mate¬ 
rials  for  the  purpose.’  Life ,  iv.  410. 

little 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


373 


little  or  nothing  for  him  to  do.  A  system  of  morals  next  was 
proposed  x.  But  perhaps  he  chose  to  promise  nothing  more.  He 
thought,  as,  like  the  running  horse  in  Horace1  2,  he  had  done  his 
best,  he  should  give  up  the  race  and  the  chase.  His  dependent 
Levett  died  suddenly  under  his  roof.  He  preserved  his  name 
from  oblivion,  by  writing  an  epitaph  for  him,  which  shows  that 
his  poetical  fire  was  not  extinguished,  and  is  so  appropriate,  that 
it  could  belong  to  no  other  person  in  the  world  3.  Johnson  said, 
that  the  remark  of  appropriation  was  just  criticism:  his  friend 
was  induced  to  pronounce,  that  he  would  not  have  so  good  an 
epitaph  written  for  himself4.  Pope  has  nothing  to  equal  it  in  his 
sepulchral  poetry.  When  he  dined  with  Mr.  Wilkes,  at  a  private 
table  in  the  city,  their  mutual  altercations  were  forgot,  at  least 
for  that  day5.  Johnson  did  not  remember  the  sharpness  of  a 
paper  against  his  description  or  definition  of  an  alphabetical  point 
animadverted  upon  in  his  dictionary  by  that  man  of  acuteness 6 ; 
who,  in  his  turn,  forgot  the  severity  of  a  pamphlet  of  Johnson7. 
All  was,  during  this  meal,  a  reciprocation  of  wit  and  good 
humour.  During  the  annual  contest  in  the  city,  Johnson  con¬ 
fessed,  that  Wilkes  would  make  a  very  good  Chamberlain8. 
When  Johnson  (who  had  said  that  he  would  as  soon  dine  with 


1  Johnson  had  at  one  time  of 
his  life  projected  ‘  A  Comparison  of 
Philosophical  and  Christian  Mo¬ 
rality,  by  sentences  collected  fro7n  the 
?noralists  and  fathers .’  Life,  iv. 
381,  n.  1. 

2  *  Solve  senescentem  mature 

sanus  equum.’ 

‘  Loose  from  the  rapid  car  your 
aged  horse.’ 

Francis,  Horace,  Epis.  i.  1.8. 

3  Life,  iv.  137. 

‘The  difficulty  in  writing  epitaphs 

is  to  give  a  particular  and  appro¬ 
priate  praise.  This,  however,  is  not 
always  to  be  performed,  whatever  be 

the  diligence  or  ability  of  the  writer  ; 

for  the  greater  part  of  mankind  have 

no  character  at  all.’  Works ,  viii. 

355- 


4  For  Parr’s  epitaph  on  Johnson 
see  Life,  iv.  424 ;  and  for  his  vanity 
about  it,  ib.  444. 

5  Lb.  iii.  64.  Wilkes,  a  year  later, 
attacked  Johnson  in  Parliament.  Ib. 
iii.  79,  n.  1.  ‘Lord  Mansfield,  we 
are  informed  on  the  unquestionable 
authority  of  Mr.  Andrew  Strahan, 
was  of  opinion  that  Mr.  Wilkes 
was  the  pleasantest  companion,  the 
politest  gentleman,  and  the  best 
scholar  he  ever  knew.’”  Nichols’s 
Lit.  Anec.  ix.  479  n.  See  ib.  for 
‘  Wilkes’s  Life  of  himself  It  was 
not  forthcoming.  The  covers  of  the 
book  remained  ;  but  the  leaves  were 
all  cut  out.’ 

6  Life,  i.  300. 

7  lb.  ii.  135,  n.  1 ;  iii.  64. 

8  lb.  iv.  101,  n.  2  ;  Letters,  i.  408. 

Jack 


374  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


Jack  Ketch  as  with  Jack  Wilkes r)  could  sit  at  the  same  table 
with  this  patriot,  it  may  be  concluded  he  did  not  write  his 
animosities  in  marble2. — Johnson  was  famous  for  saying  what 
are  called  good  things.  Mr.  Boswell,  who  listened  to  him  for 
so  many  years,  has  probably  remembered  many.  He  mentioned 
many  of  them  to  Paoli 3,  who  paid  him  the  last  tribute  of  a  visit 
to  his  grave.  If  Johnson  had  had  as  good  eyes  as  Boswell 
he  might  have  seen  more  trees  in  Scotland,  perhaps,  than  he 
mentions 4. 

This  is  not  the  record-office  for  his  sayings :  but  a  few  must  be 
recollected  here.  For  Plutarch  has  not  thought  it  beneath  his 
dignity  to  relate  some  things  of  this  sort,  of  some  of  his  heroes 5. 
‘Pray  Dr.  Johnson'  (said  somebody)  ‘is  the  master  of  the 
mansion  at  Streatham  a  man  of  much  conversation,  or  is  he  only 
wise  and  silent?’  ‘He  strikes,’  says  Johnson,  ‘once  an  hour, 
and  I  suppose  strikes  right6.’  Mr.  Thrale  left  him  a  legacy7, 
and  made  him  an  executor.  It  came  to  Johnson’s  ears,  that  the 
great  bookseller  in  the  Strand,  on  receiving  the  last  manuscript 
sheet  of  his  Dictionary,  had  said,  ‘Give  Johnson  his  money,  for 
I  thank  God  I  have  done  with  him.’  The  philologer  took  care 
that  he  should  receive  his  compliments,  and  be  informed,  ‘he 
was  extremely  glad  he  returned  thanks  to  God  for  any  thing 8.’ 


1  ‘  I  was  persuaded  that  if  I  had 
come  upon  him  with  a  direct  pro¬ 
posal,  “  Sir,  will  you  dine  in  com¬ 
pany  with  Jack  Wilkes?”  he  would 
have  flown  into  a  passion,  and  would 
probably  have  answered,  “Dine  with 
Jack  Wilkes,  Sir!  I’d  as  soon  dine 
with  Jack  Ketch.’”  Life ,  iii.  66.  Bos¬ 
well  adds  in  a  note : — ‘  This  has 
been  circulated  as  if  actually  said  by 
Johnson;  when  the  truth  is,  it  was 
only  supposed  by  me.’ 

2  ‘  Some  write  their  wrongs  in 

marble  ;  he  more  just 
Stooped  down  serene  and  wrote 
them  in  the  dust.’ 

Ante ,  ii.  267. 

3  Life,  i.  432  n. 

4  ‘  He  expressed  some  displeasure 
at  me  for  not  observing  sufficiently 


the  various  objects  upon  the  road. 
“  If  I  had  your  eyes,  Sir  (said  he), 
I  should  count  the  passengers.”  ’ 
Life ,  iv.  31 1. 

5  Boswell  also  shelters  himself  under 
the  example  of  Plutarch.  Ib.  v.  414. 

6  Ante ,  ii.  169.  ‘Johnson  said,  he 
was  angry  at  Thrale,  for  sitting  at 
General  Oglethorpe’s  without  speak¬ 
ing.  He  censured  a  man  for  de¬ 
grading  himself  to  a  non-entity.’ 
Life ,  v.  277. 

7  fioo.  Ib.  iv.  86. 

8  Andrew  Millar  was  the  book¬ 
seller.  He  would  not  have  said, 
‘  Give  Johnson  his  money,’  for  ‘  John¬ 
son  had  received  all  the  copy-money 
by  different  drafts  a  considerable 
time  before  he  had  finished  his  task.’ 
Ib.  i.  287. 


Well 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


375 


Well  known  is  the  rude  reproof  he  gave  to  a  talker,  who 
asserted,  that  every  individual  in  Scotland  had  literature. 
(By  the  by,  modern  statesmen  do  not  wish  that  every  one 
in  the  King’s  dominions  should  be  able  to  write  and  read  *.) 
‘  The  general  learning  of  the  Scotch  nation 5  (said  he,  in 
a  bad  humour)  ‘resembles  the  condition  of  a  ship’s  crew, 
condemned  to  short  allowance  of  provisions;  every  one  has 
a  mouthful,  and  nobody  a  belly  full1 2.’  Of  this  enough.  His 
size  has  been  described  to  be  large :  his  mind  and  person 
both  on  a  large  scale.  His  face  and  features  are  happily 
preserved  by  Reynolds  and  by  Nollekens3.  His  elocution  was 
energetic,  and,  in  the  words  of  a  great  scholar  in  the  north,  who 
did  not  like  him,  he  spoke  in  the  Lincolnshire  dialect 4.  His 
articulation  became  worse,  by  some  dental  losses.  But  he  never 
was  silent  on  that  account,  nor  unwilling  to  talk.  It  never  was 
said  of  him.  that  he  was  overtaken  with  liquor5,  a  declaration 
Bishop  Hoadly  makes  of  himself.  But  he  owned  that  he  drank 
his  bottle  at  a  certain  time  of  life6.  Lions,  and  the  fiercest  of 
the  wild  creation,  drink  nothing  but  water.  Like  Solomon,  who 
tried  so  many  things  for  curiosity  and  delight,  he  renounced 
strong  liquors,  (strong  liquors,  according  to  Fenton,  of  all  kinds 


1  For  Johnson’s  defence  of  popular 
education  see  Life,  ii.  1 88. 

2  ‘  He  defended  his  remark  upon 
the  general  insufficiency  of  education 
in  Scotland  ;  and  confirmed  to  me 
the  authenticity  of  his  witty  saying 
on  the  learning  of  the  Scotch  : — 
“Their  learning  is  like  bread  in  a 
besieged  town ;  every  man  gets  a 
little,  but  no  man  gets  a  full  meal.”  ’ 
lb.  ii.  363  ;  ante ,  i.  321  ;  ii.  5. 

3  Life,  iv.  421,  n.  2  ;  Letters,  ii. 

59* 

4  The  ‘  great  scholar  ’  was  perhaps 
Lord  Monboddo ;  for  his  dislike  of 
Johnson  s tzLife,  iv.  273,  n.  1.  John¬ 
son’s  accent,  such  as  it  was,  was  of 
course  that  of  Staffordshire.  ‘  Sir,’ 
he  said,  ‘  when  people  watch  me  nar¬ 
rowly,  and  I  do  not  watch  myself, 


they  will  find  me  out  to  be  of  a  par¬ 
ticular  county.’  lb.  ii.  159. 

Boswell  remarked  at  Lichfield  that 
1  there  was  pronounced  like  fear,  in¬ 
stead  of  like  fair ;  once  was  pro¬ 
nounced  woonse,  instead  of  wunse  or 
wonse.  Johnson  himself  never  got 
entirely  free  of  those  provincial  ac¬ 
cents.’  Lb.  ii.  464.  At  Aberdeen 
Boswell  records: — ‘I  was  sensible 
to-day,  to  an  extraordinary  degree, 
of  Dr.  Johnson’s  excellent  English 
pronunciation.’  lb.  v.  85. 

5  See  ante,  ii.  322  n.,  where  he 
said: — ‘I  used  to  slink  home  when 
I  had  drunk  too  much.’ 

6  ‘  I  have  drunk  three  bottles  of 
port  without  being  the  worse  for  it. 
University  College  has  witnessed 
this.’  Life,  iii.  245. 


were 


376  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


were  the  aversion  of  Milton x) ;  and  he  might  have  said,  as  that 
King  is  made  to  do  by  Prior, 

‘  I  drank,  I  lik’d  it  not,  ’twas  rage,  ’twas  noise, 

An  airy  scene  of  transitory  joys2.5 

His  temper  was  not  naturally  smooth,  but  seldom  boiled  over3. 
It  was  worth  while  to  find  out  the  mollia  tempora  fandi 4.  The 
words  nugarum  contemptor  fell  often  from  him,  in  a  reverie. 
When  asked  about  them,  he  said,  he  appropriated  them  from 
a  preface  of  Dr.  Hody.  He  was  desirous  of  seeing  every  thing 
that  was  extraordinary  in  art  or  nature  5 ;  and  to  resemble  his 
Imlac6  in  his  moral  romance  of  Rasselas.  It  was  the  fault  of 
fortune  that  he  did  not  animadvert  on  every  thing  at  home  and 
abroad 7.  He  had  been  upon  the  salt-water,  and  observed 
something  of  a  sea-life  :  of  the  uniformity  of  the  scene,  and  of 
the  sickness  and  turbulence  belonging  to  that  element,  he  had 
felt  enough8.  He  had  seen  a  little  of  the  military  life  and 


1  1  In  his  diet  he  was  abstemious ; 
not  delicate  in  the  choice  of  his 
dishes ;  and  strong  liquors  of  all 
kinds  were  his  aversion,’  &c.  Milton’s 
Poems ,  ed.  Elijah  Fenton,  1725. 
Preface,  p.  26. 

‘  What  neat  repast  shall  feast  .us, 
light  and  choice, 

Of  Attic  taste  with  wine .’ 

Milton’s  Sonnets. 

‘  What  more  foul  common  sin 
among  us  than  drunkenness  ?  And 
who  can  be  ignorant  that  if  the  im¬ 
portation  of  wine  and  the  use  of  all 
strong  drink  were  forbid,  it  would 
both  clean  rid  the  possibility  of 
committing  that  odious  vice,  and 
men  might  afterwards  live  happily 
and  healthfully  without  the  use  of 
those  intoxicating  liquors.’  Milton’s 
Tetrachordo?i ,  Works ,  1806,  ii.  163. 

2  Solomo?i  on  the  Vanity  of  the 
World ,  Bk.  ii.  1.  106. 

3  ‘  He  was  hard  to  please  and 
easily  offended  ;  impetuous  and  ir¬ 
ritable  in  his  temper,  but  of  a  most 


humane  and  benevolent  heart.’  Life , 

iv.  426. 

4  i  mollissima  fandi 
Tempora.’ 

Aeneid,  iv.  293. 

5  Boswell,  recording  his  visit  with 
Johnson  to  a  silk-mill  at  Derby, 
says  : — ‘  I  had  learnt  from  Dr.  John¬ 
son,  during  this  interview,  not  to 
think  with  a  dejected  indifference  of 
the  works  of  art,  and  the  pleasures 
of  life,  because  life  is  uncertain  and 
short ;  but  to  consider  such  indiffer¬ 
ence  as  a  failure  of  reason,  a  morbid¬ 
ness  of  mind.’  Life ,  iii.  164. 

6  Boswell  compares  him  to  Imlac. 
Ib.  iii.  6.  See  also  ante ,  ii.  220. 

7  Life ,  iii.  449. 

8  At  Plymouth  in  1762,  and  among 
the  Hebrides  in  1773.  Lb.  i.  377 ; 

v.  280-4,  308.  He  had  also  crossed 
the  Straits  of  Dover.  Ib.  ii.  384. 
It  was  ‘  a  state  of  life  of  which 
Dr.  Johnson  always  expressed  the 
greatest  abhorrence.’  Ib.  i.  348;  ii. 
438  ;  iii.  266  ;  v.  137  ;  ante ,  i.  335. 

discipline 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


377 


discipline,  by  having  passed  whole  days  and  nights  in  the  camp, 
and  in  the  tents,  at  Warley  Common  \  He  was  able  to  make 
himself  entertaining  in  his  description  of  what  he  had  seen. 
A  spark  was  enough  to  illuminate  him.  The  Giant  and  the 
Corsican  Fairy  were  objects  of  attention  to  him.  The  riding- 
horses  in  Astley’s  amphitheatre 2  (no  new  public  amusement,  for 
Homer  alludes  to  it)  he  went  to  see;  and  on  the  fireworks  of 
Toree  he  wrote  a  Latin  poem 3. 

The  study  of  humanity,  as  was  injuriously  said  of  the  great 
Bentley,  had  not  made  him  inhuman4.  He  never  wantonly 
brandished  his  formidable  weapon5.  He  meant  to  keep  his 
enemies  off.  He  did  not  mean,  as  in  the  advice  of  Radcliffe  to 
Mead,  to  ‘  bully  the  world,  lest  the  world  should  bully  him  6.’  He 
seemed  to  be  a  man  of  great  clemency  to  all  subordinate  beings. 


1  Where  a  camp  was  formed  in 
1778  during  the  dread  of  a  French 
and  Spanish  invasion.  Life ,  iii. 
360. 

2  ‘  Of  Whitefield  he  said,  “White- 
field  never  drew  as  much  attention 
as  a  mountebank  does ;  he  did  not 
draw  attention  by  doing  better  than 
others,  but  by  doing  what  was 
strange.  Were  Astley  to  preach  a 
sermon  standing  upon  his  head  on 
a  horse’s  back,  he  would  collect  a 
multitude  to  hear  him ;  but  no  wise 
man  would  say  he  had  made  a  better 
sermon  for  that.”  ’  lb.  iii.  409. 

3  Ante ,  ii.  321.  This  poem  is  not 
included  in  Johnson’s  Works. 

4  ‘Bentley  having  spoken  thus, 
Scaliger  bestowing  him  a  sour  look : — 
“  Miscreant  prater,”  said  he,  “.  .  . 
thy  learning  makes  thee  more  bar¬ 
barous,  thy  study  of  humanity  more 
inhuman.”  ’  The  Battle  of  the  Books. 
Swift’s  Works ,  ed.  1803,  iii.  230. 
There  is  a  play  on  words  here,  for 
humanity  in  one  of  its  senses  meant 
‘  philology  ;  grammatical  studies.’ 

5  ‘  I  was  (wrote  Mickle)  upwards 
of  twelve  years  acquainted  with  Dr. 
Johnson,  was  frequently  in  his  com¬ 


pany,  always  talked  with  ease  to  him, 
and  can  truly  say,  that  I  never  re¬ 
ceived  from  him  one  rough  word.’ 
Life ,  iv.  250. 

‘An  eminent  critic,’  no  doubt  Ma¬ 
lone,  said  : — ‘  I  have  been  often  in 
his  company,  and  never  once  heard 
him  say  a  severe  thing  to  any  one. 
When  he  did  say  a  severe  thing,  it 
was  generally  extorted  by  ignorance 
pretending  to  knowledge,  or  by  ex¬ 
treme  vanity  or  affectation.’  lb.  iv. 
341.  ‘  He  never  attacked  the  un¬ 

assuming,  nor  meant  to  terrify  the 
diffident.’  Mme.  D’Arblay’s  Diary , 
ii.  343. 

6  ‘  Dr.  Radcliffe  told  Dr.  Mead, 
“  Mead,  I  love  you,  and  now  I  will 
tell  you  a  sure  secret  to  make  your 
fortune ;  use  all  mankind  ill.”  As 
for  this  maxim  he  was  right.  The 
generality  are  bullies,  and  if  you  do 
not  bully  them,  they  will  bully  you. 
Yet  nobody  ever  practised  this  rule 
less  than  Dr.  Mead,  who,  as  I  have 
been  informed  by  great  physicians, 
got  as  much  again  by  his  practice  as 
Dr.  Radcliffe  did.’  J.  Richardson’s 
Richardsoniana ,  quoted  in  Gentle¬ 
man's  Magazine ,  1776,  p.373. 


He 


378  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


He  said,  ‘  he  would  not  sit  at  table,  where  a  lobster  that  had 
been  roasted  alive  was  one  of  the  dishes1/  His  charities  were 
many  ;  only  not  so  extensive  as  his  pity,  for  that  was  universal. 
An  evening  club,  for  three  nights  in  every  week,  was  contrived  to 
amuse  him,  in  Essex  Street,  founded,  according  to  his  own  words, 
‘  in  frequency  and  parsimony 2 to  which  he  gave  a  set  of  rules, 
as  Ben  Jonson  did  his  leges  convivales  at  the  Devil  Tavern3 — 
Johnson  asked  one  of  his  executors,  a  few  days  before  his  death 
(which,  according  to  his  will,  he  expected  every  day4)  ‘where 
do  you  intend  to  bury  me?'  He  answered,  ‘in  Westminster- 
abbey/  ‘Then/  continued  he,  ‘place  a  stone  over  my  grave 
(probably  to  notify  the  spot)  that  my  remains  may  not  be 
disturbed  V  Who  will  come  forth  with  an  inscription  for  him  in 
the  Poets’  corner 6  ?  Who  should  have  thought  that  Garrick  and 
Johnson  would  have  their  last  sleep  together7?  It  were  to  be 
wished  he  could  have  written  his  own  epitaph  with  propriety. 
None  of  the  lapidary  inscriptions  by  Dr.  Freind 8  have  more  merit 


1  For  his  kindness  to  his  cat 
Hodge  see  Life ,  iv.  197,  and  for  th,e 
advice  he  gave  to  Boswell  about  old 
horses  unfit  for  work,  ib.  iv.  250. 

2  ‘We  meet  thrice  a  week,  and  he 
who  misses  forfeits  two-pence.’  Ib. 
iv.  254.  In  the  Rules  the  forfeit  is 
three-pence. 

3  Ben  Jonson  wrote  Leges  Con¬ 
vivales  that  were  ‘  engraven  in  marble 
over  the  chimney  in  the  Apollo  of 
the  Old  Devil  Tavern,  Temple  Bar ; 
that  being  his  Club  Room.’  Jon- 
son’s  Wor&s,  ed.  1756,  vii.  291. 

4  ‘I,  Samuel  Johnson,  being  in 
full  possession  of  my  faculties,  but 
fearing  this  night  may  put  an  end  to 
my  life,  do  ordain  this  my  last  Will 
and  Testament.’  Life ,  iv.  402. 

s  Ante ,  ii.  133 ;  Life,  iv.  419. 
For  his  care  that  his  parents’  grave 
should  be  protected  by  ‘  a  stone 
deep,  massy,  and  hard’  see  ib.  iv.  393. 

6  His  monument  with  an  inscrip¬ 
tion  by  Parr  was  placed  in  St.  Paul’s. 
Ib.  iv.  423. 


7  ‘Within  a  few  feet  of  Johnson 
lies  (by  one  of  those  singular  coin¬ 
cidences  in  which  the  Abbey  abounds) 
his  deadly  enemy,  James  Macpher- 
son.’  Stanley’s  Westminster  Abbey , 
p.  298. 

?  Warburton  in  a  note  on 

‘  Sepulchral  Lies,  our  holy  walls 
to  grace,’ 

(. Dunciad ’  i.  43), 
says: — ‘This  is  a  just  satire  on  the 
flatteries  and  falsehoods  admitted  to 
be  inscribed  on  the  walls  of  churches 
in  epitaphs  ;  which  occasioned  the 
following  epigram  : — 

“Freind!  in  your  epitaphs  I’m 
griev’d 

So  very  much  is  said  : 

One  half  will  never  be  believ’d, 
The  other  never  read.”  ’ 

‘  The  epigram  here  inserted  (adds 
Warton)  alludes  to  the  too  long,  and 
sometimes  fulsome  epitaphs  written 
by  Dr.  F reind  in  pure  Latinity,  indeed, 
but  full  of  antitheses.’  Warton’s 
Pope’s  Works,  ed.  1822,  v.  84. 


than 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


379 


than  what  Johnson  wrote  on  Thrale1,  on  Goldsmith2,  and  Mrs. 
Salusbury 3.  By  the  way,  one  of  these  was  criticised,  by  some 
men  of  learning  and  taste,  from  the  table  of  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
and  conveyed  to  him  in  a  round  robin 4.  Maty,  in  his  Review 5, 
praises  his  Latin  epitaphs  very  highly.  This  son  of  study  and 
of  indigence  died  worth  above  seventeen  hundred  pounds6: 
Milton  died  worth  fifteen  hundred7.  His  legacy  to  his  black 
servant,  Frank,  is  noble  and  exemplary8.  Milton  left  in  his 
hand-writing  the  titles  of  some  future  subjects  for  his  pen9: 
so  did  Johnson 10. 

Johnson  died  by  a  quiet  and  silent  expiration ,  to  use  his 
own  words  on  Milton :  and  his  funeral  was  splendidly  and 
numerously  attended  ”.  The  friends  of  the  Doctor  were  happy 
on  his  easy  departure,  for  they  apprehended  he  might  have  died 
hard.  At  the  end  of  this  sketch,  it  may  be  hinted  (sooner 
might  have  been  prepossession)  that  Johnson  told  this  writer, 
for  he  saw  he  always  had  his  eye  and  his  ear  upon  him,  that 
at  some  time  or  other  he  might  be  called  upon  to  assist 
a  posthumous  account  of  him  I2. 

A  hint  was  given  to  our  author,  a  few  years  ago,  by  this 
Rhapsodist,  to  write  his  own  life,  lest  somebody  should  write  it 
for  him.  He  has  reason  to  believe,  he  has  left  a  manuscript 
biography  behind  him  l3.  His  executors,  all  honourable  men,  will 


1  Ante ,  i.  238  ;  Life ,  i-v.  85,  n.  1. 

2  Life,  iii.  82. 

3  Ante,  i.  236;  Life ,  ii.  263. 

4  Life,  iii.  83.  Round  robin  is  not 
in  Johnson’s  Dictionary. 

5  The  New  Review  by  Henry 
Maty,  April,  1784.  Ante ,  i.  237. 

6  He  left  more  than  £2,000.  The 
bequest  to  Frank  Barber  Hawkins 
estimated  at  a  sum  little  short  of 
,£1,500.  The  proceeds  of  his  house 
at  Lichfield,  which  sold  for  ,£235, 
were  divided  among  his  relations. 
He  left  besides  in  legacies  £300  in 
money,  and  /500  in  the  three  per 
cents.,  worth  about  ,£280. 

7  Johnson’s  Works,  vii.  114. 

8  Ante ,  ii.  126. 


9  Johnson’s  Works,  vii.  90. 

10  Life ,  iv.  381,  n.  1. 

11  These  words  also  are  taken  from 
Johnson’s  account  of  Milton.  Works, 
vii.  1 12.  Johnson’s  funeral  however 
was  not  ‘splendidly’  attended  in  the 
ordinary  use  of  the  word— not  as 
Garrick’s  was,  or  Reynolds’s,  or 
Burke’s.  There  was  not  a  single 
nobleman  present.  Life,  iv.  419 ; 
Letters,  ii.  434  ;  ante,  ii.  136. 

12  Life ,  i.  26,  n.  1 ;  ante,  i.  165. 

13  Boswell,  speaking  of  the  papers 
which  Johnson  burnt  a  few  days 
before  his  death,  says  : — ‘  Two  very 
valuable  articles,  I  am  sure,  we  have 
lost,  which  were  two  quarto  volumes, 
containing  a  full,  fair,  and  most  par- 

sit 


380  A  Biographical  Sketch  of  Dr.  Johnson 


sit  in  judgment  upon  his  papers1.  Thuanus,  Buchanan,  Huetius, 
and  others,  have  been  their  own  historians. 

The  memory  of  some  people,  says  Mably 2  very  lately,  ‘  is 
their  understanding  V  This  may  be  thought,  by  some  readers, 
to  be  the  case  in  point.  Whatever  anecdotes  were  furnished  by 
memory,  this  pen  did  not  choose  to  part  with  to  any  compiler. 
His  little  bit  of  gold  he  has  worked  into  as  much  gold-leaf 
as  he  could.  T.  T. 


[The  following  anecdote,  with  some  others,  was  given  by 
Tyers  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine ,  1785,  p.  85.  The  rest, 
so  far  as  they  were  of  any  value,  I  have  incorporated  in  my 
notes.] 

Dr.  Johnson  had  a  large,  but  not  a  splendid  library4,  near 


5,000  volumes.  Many  authors 
sented  him  with  their  works, 
half  his  books.  He  possessed 

ticular  account  of  his  own  life,  from 
his  earliest  recollection.’  Life ,  iv.  405. 
One  of  these  volumes  Hawkins  car¬ 
ried  off,  but  was  forced  to  bring 
back.  Ante ,  i.  127  ;  ii.  129. 

1  His  executors  were  Hawkins, 
Reynolds,  and  William  Scott  (Lord 
Stowell).  Life ,  iv.  402,  n .  2. 

2  Prescott  wrote  in  1841  : — ‘  Have 
read  for  the  tenth  time  Mably  sur 
V Etude  de  V  Hist oire,  full  of  admirable 
reflections  and  hints.  Pity  that  his 
love  of  the  ancients  made  him  high 
gravel-blind  to  the  merits  of  the 
moderns.’  Ticknor’s  Life  of  Prescott, 
Boston,  1864,  p.  91,  n.  6. 

3  Tyers  probably  did  not  know 
that  he  had  been  ‘  described  by 
Johnson  in  The  Idler ,  No.  48,  under 
the  name  of  Tom  Restless;  “a  cir¬ 
cumstance,”  says  Mr.  Nichols, 
“  pointed  out  to  me  by  Dr.  Johnson 
himself.”  ’  Lit.  Anec.  viii.  81.  ‘When 
Tom  Restless  rises  he  goes  into  a 
coffee-house,  where  he  creeps  so 
near  to  men  whom  he  takes  to  be 


not  in  hostility  with  him,  pre- 
But  his  study  did  not  contain 
the  chair  that  belonged  to  the 

reasoners,  as  to  hear  their  discourse, 
and  endeavours  to  remember  some¬ 
thing  which,  when  it  has  been  strained 
through  Tom’s  head,  is  so  near  to 
nothing,  that  what  it  once  was  can¬ 
not  be  discovered.  This  he  carries  . 
round  from  friend  to  friend  through 
a  circle  of  visits,  till,  hearing  what 
each  says  upon  the  question,  he  be¬ 
comes  able  at  dinner  to  say  a  little 
himself;  and  as  every  great  genius 
relaxes  himself  among  his  inferiors, 
meets  with  some  who  wonder  how 
so  young  a  man  can  talk  so  wisely.’ 

4  ‘  His  library,  though  by  no  means 
handsome  in  its  appearance,  was 
sold  by  Mr.  Christie  for  ^247  9^. 
Life ,  iv.  402,  n.  2.  See  also  ib.  i. 
188,  n.  3,  435. 

My  friend,  Mr.  Edward  J.  Leveson, 
the  Scribe  of  the  Johnson  Club,  re¬ 
printed  a  facsimile  of  the  sale  cata¬ 
logue  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  Library  for 
the  meeting  of  the  Johnson  Club  at 
Oxford,  June  11,  1892. 


Ciceronian 


by  Thomas  Tyers. 


381 


Ciceronian  Dr.  King  of  Oxford,  which  was  given  him  by  his 
friend  Vansittart  \  It  answers  the  purposes  of  reading  and 
writing,  by  night  or  by  day ;  and  is  as  valuable  in  all  respects 
as  the  chair  of  Ariosto,  as  delineated  in  the  preface  to  Hoole’s 
liberal  translation  of  that  poet.  Since  the  rounding  of  this 
period  intelligence  is  brought  that  this  literary  chair  is  purchased 
by  Mr.  Hoole.  Relicks  are  venerable  things,  and  are  only  not 
to  be  worshipped.  On  the  reading-chair  of  Mr.  Speaker  Onslow 
a  part  of  this  historical  sketch  was  written 2. 


1  Johnson  wrote  from  Oxford  in 
1 759  : — ‘  I  have  proposed  to  Van¬ 
sittart  climbing  over  the  wall ;  but 
he  has  refused  me.  And  I  have 
clapped  my  hands  till  they  are  sore 
at  Dr.  King’s  speech.’  Life,  i. 


348.  For  Dr.  King  see  ib.  i.  279, 
n .  5. 

2  Speaker  Onslow’s  copy  of  John¬ 
son’s  Dictionary  is  the  one  I  have 
used  in  writing  my  notes  on  Boswell 
and  Johnson. 


NARRATIVE 

OF  THE  LAST  WEEK  OF  JOHNSON'S  LIFE 

BY  THE 

RIGHT  HON.  WILLIAM  WINDHAM 


[From  the  Diary  of  the  Right  Hon.  William  Windham ,  i  vol. 
8vo.  1866,  p.  28. 

For  other  extracts  from  this  Diary  see  Letters >  ii.  439.] 

TUESDAY,  December  7th.  Ten  minutes  past  two,  P.M. 

After  waiting  sonie  short  time  in  the  adjoining  room,  I  was 
admitted  to  Dr.  Johnson 1  in  his  bedchamber,  where,  after  placing 
me  next  him  on  the  chair,  he  sitting  in  his  usual  place  on  the 
east  side  of  the  room  (and  I  on  his  right  hand),  he  put  into  my 
hands  two  small  volumes  (an  edition  of  the  New  Testament),  as  he 
afterwards  told  me,  saying,  ‘ Extremum  hoc  munus  morientis  habetol 
He  then  proceeded  to  observe  that  I  was  entering  upon  a  life 
which  would  lead  me  deeply  into  all  the  business  of  the  world 2 ; 


1  Life ,  iv.  407,41b  4I5- 

2  In  the  Coalition  Ministry  of  1783 
Windham  had  been  Chief  Secretary 
for  Ireland.  Ib.  iv.  200. 

‘  Windham  was  a  man  of  a  very 
high  order,  spoiled  by  faults  ap¬ 
parently  small.  For  the  sake  of  a 
new  subtlety  or  a  forcible  phrase  he 
was  content  to  utter  what  loaded 
him  with  permanent  unpopularity ; 
his  logical  propensity  led  him  always 


to  extreme  consequences.’  Mackin¬ 
tosh’s  Life ,  ii.  59.  He  eagerly  op¬ 
posed  the  establishment  of  parochial 
schools,  the  abolition  of  the  slave 
trade,  and  the  bills  for  preventing 
wanton  cruelty  to  animals,  and  for 
the  abolition  of  capital  punishment 
for  petty  thefts.  Romilly’s  Life ,  ii. 
216,  288.  ‘  I  remember  with  delight,’ 
wrote  Parr,  ‘those  happier  days  when 
his  refinements,  instead  of  being 

that 


Extracts  from  Windham's  Diary.  383 


that  he  did  not  condemn  civil  employment,  but  that  it  was 
a  state  of  great  danger  ;  and  that  he  had  therefore  one  piece  of 
advice  earnestly  to  impress  upon  me — that  I  would  set  apart  every 
seventh  day  for  the  care  of  my  soul ;  that  one  day,  the  seventh, 
should  be  employed  in  repenting  what  was  amiss  in  the  six  pre¬ 
ceding,  and  fortifying  my  virtue  for  the  six  to  come  ;  that  such 
a  portion  of  time  was  surely  little  enough  for  the  meditation  of 
eternity.  He  then  told  me  that  he  had  a  request  to  make  to  me ; 
namely,  that  I  would  allow  his  servant  Frank  to  look  up  to  me 
as  his  friend,  adviser,  and  protector,  in  all  difficulties  which  his 
own  weakness  and  imprudence,  or  the  force  or  fraud  of  others, 
might  bring  him  into.  He  said  that  he  had  left  him  what  he 
considered  an  ample  provision,  viz.  70/.  per  annum  1 ;  but  that 
even  that  sum  might  not  place  him  above  the  want  of  a  protector, 
and  to  me,  therefore,  he  recommended  him  as  to  one  who  had 
will,  and  power,  and  activity  to  protect  him.  Having  obtained 
my  assent  to  this,  he  proposed  that  Frank  should  be  called  in  ; 
and  desiring  me  to  take  him  by  the  hand  in  token  of  the  promise, 
repeated  before  him  the  recommendation  he  had  just  made  of 
him,  and  the  promise  I  had  given  to  attend  to  it.  I  then  took 
occasion  to  say  how  much  I  felt — what  I  had  long  foreseen  that 
I  should  feel,  regret  at  having  spent  so  little  of  my  life  in  his 
company2.  I  stated  this  as  an  instance  where  resolutions  are 
deferred  till  the  occasions  are  past.  For  some  time  past  I  had 
determined  that  such  an  occasion  of  self-reproach  should  not 
subsist,  and  had  built  upon  the  hope  of  passing  in  his  society  the 
chief  part  of  my  time,  at  the  moment  when  it  was  to  be  appre¬ 
hended  we  were  about  to  lose  him  for  ever.  I  had  no  difficulty 
in  speaking  to  him  thus  of  my  apprehensions  ;  I  could  not  help, 
on  the  other  hand,  entertaining  hopes ;  but  with  these  I  did  not 
like  to  trouble  him,  lest  he  should  conceive  that  I  thought  it 
necessary  to  flatter  him.  He  answered  hastily,  that  he  was  sure 


dangerous  in  practice,  were  in  theory- 
only  amusing.’  Field’s  Life  of  Par r, 
i-  319- 

1  His  will  is  dated  Dec.  8,  the  day 
after  he  spoke  to  Windham ;  but  he 
had  made  ‘  a  temporary  one  ’  eleven 


days  earlier.  Ante ,  ii.  126,  132. 

2  Windham,  who  had  lately  paid 
him  a  short  visit  at  Ashbourne,  re¬ 
corded  the  day  he  left,  ‘  Regretted, 
upon  reflection,  that  I  had  not  staid 
another  day.’  Letters ,  ii.  441. 

I  would 


384  Extracts  from  Windham's  Diary. 


I  would  not ;  and  proceeded  to  make  a  compliment  to  the 
manliness  of  my  mind,  which,  whether  deserved  or  not,  ought 
to  be  remembered,  that  it  may  be  deserved. 

I  then  stated,  that  among  other  neglects  was  the  omission  of 
introducing,  of  all  others,  the  most  important  [subjects],  the  con¬ 
sequence  of  which  particularly  filled  my  mind  at  that  moment, 
and  on  which  I  had  often  been  desirous  to  know  his  opinions. 
The  subjects  I  meant  were,  I  said,  ‘  natural  and  revealed  religion.* 
The  wish  thus  generally  stated,  was  in  part  gratified  on  the 
instant.  For  revealed  religion,  he  said,  there  was  such  historical 
evidence,  as,  upon  any  subject  not  religious,  would  have  left  no 
doubt.  Had  the  facts  recorded  in  the  New  Testament  been 
mere  civil  occurrences,  no  one  would  have  called  in  question  the 
testimony  by  which  they  are  established  ;  but  the  importance  an¬ 
nexed  to  them,  amounting  to  nothing  less  than  the  salvation  of 
mankind,  raised  a  cloud  in  our  minds,  and  created  doubts  unknown 
upon  any  other  subject.  Of  proofs  to  be  derived  from  history, 
one  of  the  most  cogent,  he  seemed  to  think,  was  the  opinion  so 
well  authenticated,  and  so  long  entertained,  of  a  Deliverer  that 
was  to  appear  about  that  time.  Among  the  typical  representa¬ 
tions,  the  sacrifice  of  the  Paschal  Lamb,  in  which  no  bone  was  to 
be  broken,  had  early  struck  his  mind.  For  the  immediate  life 
and  miracles  of  Christ,  such  attestation  as  that  of  the  apostles, 
who  all,  except  St.  John,  confirmed  their  testimony  with  their 
blood ;  such  belief  as  their  witness  procured  from  a  people  best 
furnished  with  the  means  of  judging,  and  least  disposed  to  judge 
favourably ;  such  an  extension  afterwards  of  that  belief  over  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth,  though  originating  from  a  nation  of  all 
others  most  despised,  would  leave  no  doubt  that  the  things 
witnessed  were  true,  and  were  of  a  nature  more  than  human. 

i 

With  respect  to  evidence,  Dr.  Johnson  observed  that  we  had  not 
such  evidence  that  Caesar  died  in  the  Capitol,  as  that  Christ 
died  in  the  manner  related  x. 

1  ith.  First  day  of  skating;  ice  fine.  Find  I  have  lost  nothing 
since  last  year. 

Between  nine  and  ten  went  to  Sir  Joshua,  whom  I  took  up  by 
1  Life ,  i.  428,  444,  454  ;  v.  340  ;  ante ,  ii.  157. 

the 


Extracts  from  Windham’s  Diary. 


385 


the  way,  to  see  Dr.  Johnson.  Strachan  1  and  Langton  there.  No 
hopes ;  though  a  great  discharge  had  taken  place  from  the  legs. 

1 2th.  Came  down  about  ten;  read  reviews,  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Siddons,  and  then  went  to  the  ice ;  came  home  only  in  time  to 
dress  and  go  to  my  mother’s  to  dinner.  About  half  past  seven 
went  to  Dr.  Johnson’s,  where  I  stayed,  chiefly  in  the  outer  room, 
till  past  eleven.  Strachan  there  during  the  whole  time  ;  during 
part  Mr.  Hoole  ;  and  latterly  Mr.  Cruikshank  and  the  apothecary. 
I  only  went  in  twice,  for  a  few  minutes  each  time  :  the  first  time 
I  hinted  only  what  they  had  before  been  urging ;  namely,  that 
he  would  be  prevailed  upon  to  take  some  sustenance,  and  desisted 
upon  his  exclaiming.  ‘  ’Tis  all  very  childish ;  let  us  hear  no 
more  of  it2.’  The  second  time  I  came  in,  in  consequence  of 
a  consultation  with  Mr.  Cruikshank  and  the  apothecary,  and 
addressed  him  formally.  After  premising  that  I  considered  what 
I  was  going  to  say  as  a  matter  of  duty ;  I  said  that  I  hoped  he 
would  not  suspect  me  of  the  weakness  of  importuning  him  to 
take  nourishment  for  the  purpose  of  prolonging  his  life  for  a  few 
hours  or  days.  I  then  stated  what  the  reason  was,  that  it  was 
to  secure  that  which  I  was  persuaded  he  was  most  anxious 
about ;  namely,  that  he  might  preserve  his  faculties  entire  to 
the  last  moment.  Before  I  had  quite  stated  my  meaning,  he 
interrupted  me  by  saying,  that  he  had  refused  no  sustenance  but 
inebriating  sustenance ;  and  proceeded  to  give  instances  where, 
in  compliance  with  the  wishes  of  his  physician,  he  had  taken 
even  a  small  quantity  of  wine.  I  readily  assented  to  any  objec¬ 
tions  he  might  have  to  nourishment  of  that  kind,  and  observing 
that  milk  was  the  only  nourishment  I  intended,  flattered  myself 
that  I  had  succeeded  in  my  endeavours,  when  he  recurred  to  his 
general  refusal,  and  ‘  begged  that  there  might  be  an  end  of  it.’ 
I  then  said,  that  I  hoped  he  would  forgive  my  earnestness — or 
something  to  that  effect,  when  he  replied  eagerly,  that  from  me 
nothing  would  be  necessary  by  way  of  apology ;  adding,  with 
great  fervour,  in  words  which  I  shall  (I  hope)  never  forget,  ‘  God 
bless  you,  my  dear  Windham,  through  Jesus  Christ;’  and  con¬ 
cluding  with  a  wish  ‘  that  we  might  [share]  in  some  humble 
portion  of  that  happiness  which  God  might  finally  vouchsafe  to 

1  Rev.  George  Strahan.  2  Ante ,  ii.  159. 

VOL.  II.  C  c  repentant 


386 


Extracts  from  Windham's  Diary. 


repentant  sinners/  These  were  the  last  words  I  ever  heard  him 
speak.  I  hurried  out  of  the  room  with  tears  in  my  eyes,  and 
more  affected  than  I  had  been  on  any  former  occasion. 

December  13. — In  the  morning  meant  to  have  met  Mr.  Cruik- 
shank  in  Bolt  Court  ;  but  while  I  was  deliberating  about  going, 
was  sent  for  by  Mr.  Burke.  Went  to  Bolt  Court  about  half-past 
three.  Found  Dr.  Johnson  had  been  almost  constantly  asleep 
since  nine  in  the  morning,  and  heard  from  Mr.  Des  Moulins  an 
account  of  what  had  passed  in  the  night.  He  had  compelled 
Frank  to  give  him  a  lancet,  and  had  besides  concealed  in  the 
bed  a  pair  of  scissors,  and  with  one  or  the  other  of  these  had 
scarified  himself  in  three  places,  two  in  the  leg,  &c.  On 
Mr.  Des  Moulins  making  a  difficulty  of  giving  him  the  lancet, 
he  said,  1  Don’t  you,  if  you  have  any  scruples  ;  but  I  will  compel 
Frank :  ’  and  on  Mr.  Des  Moulins  attempting  afterwards  to 
prevent  Frank  from  giving  it  to  him,  and  at  last  to  restrain  his 
hands,  he  grew  very  outrageous,  so  as  to  call  Frank  scoundrel, 
and  to  threaten  Mr.  Des  Moulins  that  he  would  stab  him.  He 
then  made  the  three  incisions  above  mentioned,  of  which  one  in 
the  leg,  &c.  were  not  unskilfully  made ;  but  the  other  in  the  leg 
was  a  deep  and  ugly  wound  from  which,  with  the  others,  they 
suppose  him  to  have  lost  nearly  eight  ounces  of  blood  \  Upon 
Dr.  Heberden  expressing  his  fears  about  the  scarification, 
Dr.  Johnson  told  him  he  was  timidorum  timidissimus2 . 

A  few  days  before  his  death,  talking  with  Dr.  Brocklesby,  he 
said,  ‘  Now  will  you  ascribe  my  death  to  my  having  taken  eight 
grains  of  squills,  when  you  recommended  only  three ;  Dr.  Heberden, 
to  my  having  opened  my  left  foot,  when  nature  was  pointing  out 
the  discharge  in  the  right3.’  The  conversation  was  introduced 
by  his  quoting  some  lines  to  the  same  purpose,  from  Swift’s 
verses  on  his  own  death 4. 

1  Ante ,  ii.  134. 

2  lb.  i.  199.  3  lb.  ii.  7. 

4  ‘  The  doctors,  tender  of  their  fame, 

Wise.y  on  me  lay  all  the  blame. 

“We  must  confess  his  case  was  nice; 

But  he  would  never  take  advice. 

Had  he  been  rul’d,  for  aught  appears, 


He  might  have  liv’d  these  twenty 
years  ; 

For,  when  we  open’d  him,  we  found 
That  all  his  vital  parts  were  sound.”’ 
On  the  Death  of  Dr  Swift.  Swift’s 
Works ,  ed.  1S03,  xi.  245. 

Johnson  in  his  last  years  often 


Extracts  from  Windham’s  Diary. 


387 


It  was  within  the  same  period  (if  I  understood  Dr.  Brocklesby 
rightly)  that  he  enjoined  him,  as  an  honest  man  and  a  physician, 
to  inform  him  how  long  he  thought  he  had  to  live.  Dr.  Brocklesby 
inquired,  in  return,  whether  he  had  firmness  to  learn  the  answer. 
Upon  his  replying  that  he  had,  and  Dr.  B.  limiting  the  term  to 
a  few  weeks,  he  said,  ‘that  he  then  would  trouble  himself  no 
more  with  medicine  or  medical  advice:’  and  to  this  resolution 
he  pretty  much  adhered  x. 

In  a  conversation  about  what  was  practicable  in  medicine  or 
surgery,  he  quoted,  to  the  surprise  of  his  physicians,  the  opinion 
of  Marchetti  for  an  operation  (I  think)  of  extracting  part  of 
the  kidney.  He  recommended  for  an  account  of  China,  Sir  John 
Mandeville’s  Travels .  Halliday’s  Notes  on  Juvenal  he  thought 
so  highly  of  as  to  have  employed  himself  for  some  time  in 
translating  them  into  Latin  2. 

He  insisted  on  the  doctrine  of  an  expiatory  sacrifice  as  the 
condition  without  which  there  was  no  Christianity ;  and  urged  in 
support  the  belief  entertained  in  all  ages,  and  by  all  nations, 
barbarous  as  well  as  polite.  He  recommended  to  Dr.  Brocklesby, 
also,  Clarke’s  Sermons,  and  repeated  to  him  the  passage  which 
he  had  spoken  of  to  me3. 

While  airing  one  day  with  Dr.  B.,  in  passing  and  returning  by 
St.  Pancras’  church,  he  fell  into  prayer,  and  mentioned,  upon 
Dr.  B.’s  inquiring  why  the  Catholics  chose  that  for  their  burying 
place,  that  some  Catholics,  in  Queen  Elizabeth’s  time,  had  been 
burnt  there4.  Upon  Dr.  B.’s  asking  him  whether  he  did  not 
feel  the  warmth  of  the  sun,  he  quoted  from  Juvenal — 


quoted  from  this  poem.  Letters ,  ii. 
147,  192,  302,  404,  421. 

1  Life ,  iv.  415;  ante ,  ii.  122,  149, 

369- 

2  Barten  Holyday,  or  Holiday, pub¬ 
lished  in  1616  averse  translation  of 
Persius.  ‘  The  posthumous  edition 
of  1673  was  accompanied  by  a  new 
translation  of  Juvenal,  and  contains 
voluminous  notes.’  Diet.  Nat.  Biog. 
xxvii.  214. 

3  Ante,  ii.  205  ;  Life ,  iv.  414,  416 ; 
v.  88. 

C 


4  ‘  Pancras,  a  small  hamlet  in 
Middlesex,  on  the  north-west  side 
of  London,  in  the  road  to  Kentish 
town.  The  churchyard  is  a  general 
burying-place  for  persons  of  the 
Romish  religion.’  Dodsley’s  London , 
ed.  1761,  v.  105.  General  Paoli  was 
buried  there.  No  Catholics  were 
burnt  by  Elizabeth.  ‘  There  was 
nothing  in  the  creeds  of  the  Puritans 
or  of  the  Catholics  which,  according 
to  law,  could  subject  them  to  the 
pains  of  heresy  ;  but  the  Anabaptists 

2  ‘  Praeterea 


388 


Extracts  from  Windham’s  Diary. 


‘  Prasterea  minimus  gelido  jam  in  corpore  sanguis 
Febre  calet  sola1.’ 

45  minutes  past  io  P.  M. — While  I  was  writing  the  adjoining 
articles  I  received  the  fatal  account,  so  long  dreaded,  that 
Dr.  Johnson  was  no  more! 

May  those  prayers  which  he  incessantly  poured  from  a  heart 
fraught  with  the  deepest  devotion,  find  that  acceptance  with 
Him  to  whom  they  were  addressed,  which  piety,  so  humble  and 
so  fervent,  may  seem  to  promise ! 

Dr.  Brocklesby  made  him  an  offer  of  too  1.  a  year  if  he  should 
determine  to  go  abroad ;  he  pressed  his  hands  and  said,  ‘  God 
bless  you  through  Jesus  Christ,  but  I  will  take  no  money  but 
from  my  sovereign 2.’  This,  if  I  mistake  not,  was  told  the  King 
through  West 3.  That  Johnson  wanted  much  assistance,  and  that 
the  Chancellor  meant  to  apply  for  it,  His  Majesty  was  told 
through  the  same  channel. 

On  dissection  of  the  body,  vesicles  of  wind  were  found  on  the 
lungs  (which  Dr.  Heberden  said  he  had  never  seen,  and  of  which 
Cruikshank  professed  to  have  seen  only  two  instances),  one  of 
the  kidneys  quite  gone,  a  gall  stone  in  the  bladder,  I  think ; 
no  water  in  the  chest,  and  little  in  the  abdomen,  no  more  than 
might  have  found  its  way  thither  after  death. 

20th. — A  memorable  day — the  day  which  saw  deposited  in 
Westminster  Abbey  the  remains  of  Johnson.  After  our  return 
from  the  Abbey  I  spent  some  time  with  Burke  on  the  subject 
of  his  negociation  with  the  Chancellor.  We  dined  at  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds’,  viz.  Burke  and  R.  Burke,  Metcalf,  Colman,  Hoole, 
Scott,  Burney  and  Brocklesby. 


were  still  doomed  to  suffer  at  the 
stake  under  Elizabeth.’  Lingard’s 
Hist,  of  England,  ed.  1823,  viii.  183. 
Three  Anabaptists  were  burnt,  and 
one,  Francis  Kett,  ‘who  had  uttered 
blasphemies  against  the  Divinity  of 
Christ.’ 

1  Satires ,  x.  217 : — 


‘Add  that  a  fever  only  warms 
his  veins, 

And  thaws  the  little  blood  that 
yet  remains.’  Gifford. 

2  Life ,  iv.  338 ;  ante ,  i.  441-3 ; 
ii.  369. 

3  Most  likely  Benjamin  West,  the 
painter. 


MINOR  ANECDOTES  OF 


DR.  JOHNSON 

- M - 


BY  ROBERT  BARCLAY. 

[FROM  Croker’s  Boswell ,  x.  122.  For  Robert  Barclay,  who 
with  John  Perkins  bought  Thrale’s  Brewery,  see  Life>  iv.  118, 
n.  1  ;  Letters ,  ii.  216  n . 

He  was  the  great-grandson  of  the  author  of  the  Apology.  He 
must  not  be  confused  with  his  cousin  and  contemporary  Robert 
Barclay,  the  banker  of  Lombard  Street.] 

Mr.  Barclay,  from  his  connexion  with  Mr.  Thrale,  had  several 
opportunities  of  meeting  and  conversing  with  Dr.  Johnson.  On 
his  becoming  a  partner  in  the  brewery,  Johnson  advised  him 
not  to  allow  his  commercial  pursuits  to  divert  his  attention 
from  his  studies.  ‘  A  mere  literary  man,’  said  the  Doctor,  ‘  is 
a  dull  man ;  a  man  who  is  solely  a  man  of  business  is  a  selfish 
man ;  but  when  literature  and  commerce  are  united,  they  make 
a  respectable  man  V 

Mr.  Barclay  had  never  observed  any  rudeness  or  violence  on 
the  part  of  Johnson.  He  has  seen  Boswell  lay  down  his  knife 
and  fork,  and  take  out  his  tablets,  in  order  to  register  a  good 
anecdote2.  When  Johnson  proceeded  to  the  dining-room,  one 
of  Mr.  Thrale’s  servants  handed  him  a  wig  of  a  smarter  de¬ 
scription  than  the  one  he  wore  in  the  morning ;  the  exchange 

1  ‘Domi  inter  mille  mercaturae  Thrale.  Ante ,  i.  238;  ii.  13,  309. 
negotia  iiterarum  elegantiam  minime  For  respectable  see  Life ,  iii.  241,  n.  2. 
neglexit.’  Johnson’s  epitaph  on  Mr.  2  Ante ,  i.  175. 


took 


390 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


took  place  in  the  hall,  or  passage1.  Johnson,  like  many  other 
men,  was  always  in  much  better  humour  after  dinner  than 
before. 

Mr.  Barclay  saw  Johnson  ten  days  before  he  died,  when  the 
latter  observed,  ‘  That  they  should  never  meet  more.  Have 
you  any  objection  to  receive  an  old  man’s  blessing?’  Mr. 
Barclay  knelt  down,  and  Johnson  gave  him  his  blessing  with 
great  fervency. 


BY  H.  D.  BEST. 

\ 

[From  Persotial  and  Literary  Memorials,  i  vok,  8vo.  London, 
1829,  pp.  ii,  62, 63, 65.] 

Mrs.  Digby  told  me  that  when  she  lived  in  London  with  her 
sister  Mrs.  Brooke2,  they  were  every  now  and  then  honoured 
by  the  visits  of  Dr.  Johnson.  He  called  on  them  one  day 
soon  after  the  publication  of  his  immortal  dictionary.  The  two 
ladies  paid  him  due  compliments  on  the  occasion.  Amongst 
other  topics  of  praise  they  very  much  commended  the  omission 
of  all  naughty  words.  ‘  What,  my  dears !  then  you  have  been 
looking  for  them?’  said  the  moralist.  The  ladies,  confused 
at  being  thus  caught,  dropped  the  subject  of  the  dictionary. 

In  early  youth  I  knew  Bennet  Langton,  of  that  ilk ,  as  the 
Scotch  say.  With  great  personal  claims  to  the  respect  of  the 
public,  he  is  known  to  that  public  chiefly  as  a  friend  of  Johnson. 
He  was  a  very  tall,  meagre,  long-visaged  man,  much  resembling, 
according  to  Richard  Paget,  a  stork  standing  on  one  leg,  near 
the  shore,  in  Raphael’s  cartoon  of  the  miraculous  draught  of 
fishes.  His  manners  were  in  the  highest  degree  polished;  his 
conversation  mild,  equable,  and  always  pleasing.  He  had  the 
uncommon  faculty  of  being  a  good  reader3.  I  formed  an 

1  Ante,  i.  307.  more,  let’s  go  into  the  slaughter- 

2  Ante,  i.  322  ;  ii.  192.  house  again,  Lanky.  But  I  am  afraid 

3  He  read  Dodsley’s  Cleone  to  there  is  more  blood  than  brains.”  ’ 
Johnson,  who  ‘at  the  end  of  an  Life,  iv.  20. 

act  said,  “  Come,  let’s  have  some 


intimacy 


By  Sir  Brooke  Boothby. 


39 1 

intimacy  with  his  son,  and  went  to  pay  him  a  visit  at  Langton. 
After  breakfast  we  walked  to  the  top  of  a  very  steep  hill  behind 
the  house.  When  we  arrived  at  the  summit,  Mr.  Langton  said, 
‘Poor,  dear  Dr.  Johnson,  when  he  came  to  this  spot,  turned 
to  look  down  the  hill,  and  said  he  was  determined  “  to  take 
a  roll  down x.”  When  we  understood  what  he  meant  to  do, 
we  endeavoured  to  dissuade  him  ;  but  he  was  resolute,  saying, 
he  had  not  had  a  roll  for  a  long  time  ;  and  taking  out  of  his 
lesser  pockets  whatever  might  be  in  them — keys,  pencil,  purse, 
or  pen-knife,  and  laying  himself  parallel  with  the  edge  of  the 
hill,  he  actually  descended,  turning  himself  over  and  over  till 
he  came  to  the  bottom.’ 

The  story  was  told  with  such  gravity,  and  with  an  air  of 
such  affectionate  remembrance  of  a  departed  friend,  that  it 
was  impossible  to  suppose  this  extraordinary  freak  of  the 
great  lexicographer  to  have  been  a  fiction  or  invention  of 
Mr.  Langton. 


BY  SIR  BROOKE  BOOTHBY. 

[The  following  anecdotes  were  communicated  to  Dr.  Anderson 
by  Sir  Brooke  Boothby,  Bart.,  ‘  who  had  frequent  opportunities 
of  enjoying  the  company  of  Johnson  at  Lichfield  and  Ashbourne.’ 
Anderson’s  Life  of  Jolmson ,  ed.  1815,  P-  322. 

Sir  Brooke  Boothby  was  the  brother  of  Miss  Hill  Boothby. 
Ante ,  i.  18  ;  Life ,  i.  83  ;  Letters ,  i.  45.] 

Johnson  spoke  as  he  wrote.  He  would  take  up  a  topic,  and 
utter  upon  it  a  number  of  the  Rambler 2.  On  a  question,  one 
day,  at  Miss  Porter’s,  concerning  the  authority  of  a  newspaper 
for  some  fact,  he  related,  that  a  lady  of  his  acquaintance  im¬ 
plicitly  believed  every  thing  she  read  in  the  papers ;  and  that, 
by  way  of  curing  her  credulity,  he  fabricated  a  story  of  a  battle 
between  the  Russians  and  Turks,  then  at  war;  and  ‘that  it 

1  Johnson  visited  Langton  in  1764.  que  ceux  qui  ecrivent  comme  ils 

Life ,  i.  476  ;  ante ,  i.  286,  291.  parlent,  quoiqu’ils  parlent  tr^s-bien, 

2  Ante ,  i.  348  ;  ii.  92.  dcrivent  mal.’  Corresftondance  de 

1  M.  de  Buffon  remarque  tr£s-bien  Grimm ,  ed.  1814,  i.  33. 

might 


392 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


might,’  he  said,  ‘  bear  internal  evidence  of  its  futility,  I  laid 
the  scene  in  an  island  at  the  conflux  of  the  Boristhenes  and 
the  Danube ;  rivers  which  run  at  the  distance  of  a  hundred 
leagues  from  each  other.  The  lady,  however,  believed  the 
story,  and  never  forgave  the  deception ;  the  consequence  of 
which  was,  that  I  lost  an  agreeable  companion,  and  she  was 
deprived  of  an  innocent  amusement  V  And  he  added,  as  an 
extraordinary  circumstance,  that  the  Russian  ambassador  sent 
in  great  haste  to  the  printer,  to  know  from  whence  he  had 
received  the  intelligence.  Another  time,  at  Dr.  Taylor’s,  a  few 
days  after  the  death  of  the  wife  of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Kennedy,  of 
Bradley2,  a  woman  of  extraordinary  sense,  he  described  the 
eccentricities  of  the  man  and  the  woman,  with  a  nicety  of 
discrimination,  and  a  force  of  language,  equal  to  the  best  of 
his  periodical  essays.  Now,  with  such  powers,  and  the  full 
confidence  he  felt  in  himself  before  any  audience,  he  must  have 
made  an  able  and  impressive  speaker  in  Parliament 3. 


BY  THE  REV.  W.  COLE. 


[From  Cole’s  Collection  in  the  British  Museum.  Croker's 
Boswell ,  x.  123.] 

I  was  told  by  Mr.  Farmer,  the  present  Master  of  Emanuel 
College4,  that  he  being  in  London  last  year  [1774]  with  Mr. 
Arnold,  tutor  in  St.  John’s  College,  was  desired  to  introduce 


1  The  lady  was  Mrs.  Salusbury, 
Mrs.  Thrale’s  mother.  She  was  re¬ 
conciled  to  Johnson.  Ante ,  i.  235. 

2  A  village  in  Derbyshire,  where 
Johnson  visited  the  Meynells.  Life , 
i.  82  ;  Letters ,  i.  45,  n.  6.  i  In  1762 
he  wrote  for  the  Rev.  Dr.  John 
Kennedy,  the  Rector  of  Bradley,  in 
a  strain  of  very  courtly  elegance  a 
dedication  to  the  King.5  Life,  i. 
366.  It  is  probably  the  same  Dr. 

Kennedy  who  wrote  a  foolish  tragedy 
which  had  been  shown  to  Mr.  Fitz- 

herbert,  and  who  married  Miss  Mey- 

nell.  Ib.  iii.  238. 


The  following  anecdote  is  recorded 
of  one  branch  of  the  Meynells  in 
Hutton’s  History  of  Derby,  ed.  1867, 
p.  267.  ‘  While  the  Meynell  family 
were  spending  their  sober  evening 
by  the  glow  of  their  own  fire,  a  coach 
and  six  was  heard  rolling  up  to  the 
door.  “  Bring  candles,”  says  the 
lady  of  the  mansion,  with  some 
emotion,  while  she  stept  forward  to 
receive  the  guests ;  but  instantly  re¬ 
turning,  “  Light  up  a  rush,”  said  she, 
“  it  is  only  my  cousin  Curzon.”  ’ 

3  Ante ,  ii.  362  n. 

4  Life ,  iii.  38. 


the 


From  William  Cooke's  Life  of  Samuel  Foote.  393 


the  latter,  who  had  been  bred  a  Whig,  to  the  acquaintance  of 
the  very  learned  and  sensible  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson.  They  had 
not  been  long  together,  before  (the  conversation  leading  to  it) 
the  Doctor,  addressing  himself  to  Mr.  Arnold,  said,  4  Sir,  you 
are  a  young  man,  but  I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  the  world, 
and  take  it  upon  my  word  and  experience,  that  where  you 
see  a  Whig  you  see  a  rascal  V  Mr.  Farmer  said  he  was  startled, 
and  rather  uneasy  that  the  Doctor  had  expressed  himself  so 
bluntly,  and  was  apprehensive  that  Mr.  Arnold  might  be  shocked 
and  take  it  ill.  But  they  laughed  it  off,  and  were  very  good 
company. 


FROM  WILLIAM  COOKE’S  LIFE  OF 
SAMUEL  FOOTE. 


Dr.  Johnson  being  asked  by  a  lady  why  he  so  constantly 
gave  money  to  beggars,  replied  with  great  feeling,  ‘  Madam,  to 
enable  them  to  beg  on1 2.’  Vol.  ii.  p.  110. 

Dr.  Johnson  being  asked  by  a  lady  what  love  was,  replied, 
‘  It  was  the  wisdom  of  a  fool  and  the  folly  of  the  wise.’  Vol.  ii. 
P-  154- 


In  the  recital  of  prayers  and  religious  poems  Dr.  Johnson 
was  awfully  impressive3.  One  night  at  the  Club4,  a  person 
quoting  the  nineteenth  psalm,  the  Doctor  caught  fire ;  and 
instantly  taking  off  his  hat  began  with  great  solemnity  : — 


‘  The  spacious  firmament  on  high,5 

and  went  through  that  beautiful  hymn 5.  Those  who  were 


1  For  rascal  see  ib.  iii.  i,  and  for 
abuse  of  Whigs  and  Whiggism,  vi. 
323.  The  autumn  of  this  same  year 
(1774),  just  before  the  general  elec¬ 
tion,  Johnson  said  to  Burke,  ‘  I  wish 
you  all  the  success  which  ought  to 
be  wished  you,  which  can  possibly 
be  wished  you  indeed — by  an  honest 
man.'  Ante ,  i.  309. 

2  Ante ,  i.  204. 

3  Jb.  ii.  266. 


4  Most  likely  the  Essex  Head 
Club,  of  which  Cooke  was  a  member. 

5  Thackeray  in  his  English  Hu¬ 
mourists  (ed.  1858,  p.  109)  says  of 
this  hymn  of  Addison’s  : — ‘  Listen  to 
him ;  from  your  childhood  you  have 
known  the  verses  :  but  who  can  hear 
their  sacred  music  without  love  and 
awe  ?  ...  It  seems  to  me  that  these 
verses  shine  like  the  stars.  They 
shine  out  of  a  great  deep  calm.’ 

acquainted 


394 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


acquainted  with  the  Doctor  knew  how  harsh  his  features  in 
general  were ;  but,  upon  this  occasion,  to  use  the  language 
of  Scripture, — ‘  his  face  was  almost  as  if  it  had  been  the  face 
of  an  angel  V 

Soon  after  Garrick’s  purchase  at  Hampton  Court1  2  he  was 
showing  Dr.  Johnson  the  grounds,  the  house,  Shakespeare’s 
temple  &c. ;  and  concluded  by  asking  him,  4  Well,  Doctor,  how 
do  you  like  all  this??  ‘Why,  it  is  pleasant  enough,’  growled 
the  Doctor,  ‘  for  the  present ;  but  all  these  things,  David,  make 
death  very  terrible.’ 

At  the  same  time  on  Garrick’s  showing  him  a  magnificent 
library,  full  of  books  in  most  elegant  bindings,  the  Doctor  began 
running  over  the  volumes  in  his  usual  coarse  and  negligent 
manner ;  which  \vas  by  opening  the  book  so  wide  as  almost 
to  break  the  back  of  it,  and  then  flung  them  down  one  by  one 
on  the  floor  with  contempt 3.  ‘  Zounds  !  ’  said  Garrick,  who  was 

in  torture  all  this  time,  ‘  why,  what  are  you  about  there  ?  you’ll 
spoil  all  my  books/  ‘No,  Sir,’  cried  Johnson,  ‘I  have  done 
nothing  but  treat  a  pack  of  silly  plays  in  fops'  dresses  just  as 
they  deserve  ;  but  I  see  no  books.' 


FROM  THE  EUROPEAN  MAGAZINE  4. 

Boswell  was  a  man  of  excellent  natural  parts,  on  which  he 
had  engrafted  a  great  deal  of  general  knowledge5.  His  talents 
as  a  man  of  company  were  much  heightened  by  his  extreme 


1  Acts,  vi.  15. 

2  ‘Here  he  received  the  visits  of 
the  nobility,  of  the  ablest  scholars, 
and  the  men  of  genius  in  every  branch 
of  literature.  He  lived  in  an  elegant 
style,  and  to  the  luxuries  of  the  table 
added  his  wit  and  the  polished 
manner  of  one  who  had  enjoyed  the 
best  company.  His  behaviour  was 

modest  and  unassuming ;  he  gave 

himself  no  superior  airs,  and  the 

pride  which  a  large  fortune  often 


inspires  was  foreign  to  his  heart.’ 
Murphy’s  Life  of  Garrick,  p.  345. 

3  Life,  ii.  192. 

4  European  Magazine ,  1 798,  p. 
376. 

5  When  he  was  twenty-five  years 
old  Johnson  said  to  him: — ‘Your 
general  mass  of  knowledge  of  books 
and  men  renders  you  very  capable  to 
make  yourself  master  of  any  science, 
or  fit  yourself  for  any  profession.’ 
Life,  ii.  9. 


cheerfulness 


From  the  ‘European  Magazine. J 


395 


cheerfulness  and  good  nature.  Mr.  Burke  said  of  him,  that  he 
had  no  merit  in  possessing  that  agreeable  faculty,  and  that 
a  man  might  as  well  assume  to  himself  merit  in  possessing 
an  excellent  constitution  \  Mr.  Boswell  professed  the  Scotch 
and  the  English  law ;  but  had  never  taken  very  great  pains 
on  the  subject.  His  father,  Lord  Auchinleck,  told  him  one 
day,  that  it  would  cost  him  more  trouble  to  hide  his  ignorance 
in  these  professions,  than  to  show  his  knowledge.  This  Mr.  Bos¬ 
well  owned  he  had  found  to  be  true1  2.  Society  was  his  idol ; 
to  that  he  sacrificed  every  thing :  his  eye  glistened,  and  his 
countenance  brightened  up,  when  he  saw  the  human  face 
divine3 ;  and  that  person  must  have  been  very  fastidious  indeed, 
who  did  not  return  him  the  same  compliment  when  he  came 
into  a  room.  Of  his  Life  of  Johnson,  who  can  say  too  much, 
pr  praise  it  too  highly?  What  is  Plutarch’s  biography  to  his? 
so  minute,  so  appropriate,  so  dramatic4. 


A  gentleman  of  Lichfield  meeting  the  Doctor  returning  from 
a  walk,  inquired  how  far  he  had  been?  The  Doctor  replied, 
he  had  gone  round  Mr.  Levet’s  field5  (the  place  where  the 


1  Johnson  wrote  to  Boswell  on 
July  3,  1778: — ‘If  general  approba¬ 
tion  will  add  anything  to  your  enjoy¬ 
ment,  I  can  tell  you  that  I  have 
heard  you  mentioned  as  a  man  whom 
everybody  likes.'  Life ,  iii.  362.  An¬ 
other  time  he  described  him  as  ‘  the 
best  travelling  companion  in  the 
world.’  Ib.  iii.  294.  He  wrote  of 
him  to  Mrs.  Thrale  :  ‘  I  shall  cele¬ 
brate  his  good-humour  and  per¬ 
petual  cheerfulness.’  Letters,  i.  291. 
It  was  for  him  that  he  invented  the 
word  chibable.  ‘  Boswell  (said  he) 
is  a  very  clubable  man.’  Life ,  iv. 
254  n. 

2  To  his  friend  Temple  he  wrote  :  — 

‘  I  have  a  kind  of  impotency  of  study.’ 
Letters  of  Boswell ,  p.  181.  Never¬ 
theless,  in  the  University  which  he 
and  Johnson  imagined  he  was  ‘to 

teach  Civil  and  Scotch  law.’  Life , 

v.  108.  For  his  confession  of  his 


ignorance  of  English  law,  and  of  ‘  the 
delusion  of  Westminster  Hall,  of 
brilliant  reputation  and  splendid 
fortune,’  which,  he  continues,  ‘  still 
weighs  upon  my  imagination,’  see  ib. 
iii.  179  n. 

3  Paradise  Lost ,  Bk.  iii.  1.  44. 

4  ‘  Boswell  is  the  first  of  bio¬ 
graphers.  He  has  no  second.  He 
has  distanced  all  his  competitors  so 
decidedly  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to 
place  them.  Eclipse  is  first,  and  the 
rest  nowhere.’  Macaulay’s  Essays , 
ed.  1843,  i.  374. 

‘  Of  all  the  men  distinguished  in 
this  or  any  other  age  Dr.  Johnson 
has  left  upon  posterity  the  strongest 
and  most  vivid  impression,  so  far  as 
person,  manners,  disposition  and 
conversation  are  concerned.’  Scott’s 
Works ,  ed.  1834,  iii.  260. 

5  For  John  Levett  of  Lichfield  see 
Life,  i.  160 ;  Letters ,  i.  14. 


scholars 


396 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


scholars  play)  in  search  of  a  rail  that  he  used  to  jump  over  when 
a  boy,  ‘and,’  says  the  Doctor  in  a  transport  of  joy,  ‘  I  have  been 
so  fortunate  as  to  find  it :  I  stood,  said  he,  ‘  gazing  upon  it  some 
time  with  a  degree  of  rapture,  for  it  brought  to  my  mind  all 
my  juvenile  sports  and  pastimes,  and  at  length  I  determined 
to  try  my  skill  and  dexterity  ;  I  laid  aside  my  hat  and  wig, 
pulled  off  my  coat,  and  leapt  over  it  twice.5  Thus  the  great 
Dr.  Johnson,  only  three  years  before  his  death,  was,  without 
hat,  wig,  or  coat,  jumping  over  a  rail  that  he  had  used  to  fly 
over  when  a  school-boy z. 

Amongst  those  who  were  so  intimate  with  Dr.  Johnson  as  to 
have  him  occasionally  an  intimate  in  their  families,  it  is  a  well 
known  fact  that  he  would  frequently  descend  from  the  con¬ 
templation  of  subjects  the  most  profound  imaginable  to  the 
most  childish  playfulness.  It  was  no  uncommon  thing  to  see 
him  hop,  step,  and  jump1  2 ;  he  would  often  seat  himself  on  the 
back  of  his  chair,  and  more  than  once  has  been  known  to 
propose  a  race  on  some  grassplat  adapted  to  the  purpose.  He 
was  very  intimate  and  much  attached  to  Mr.  John  Payne3, 
once  a  bookseller  in  Paternoster  Row,  and  afterwards  Chief 
Accountant  of  the  Bank.  Mr.  Payne  was  of  a  very  diminutive 
appearance,  and  once  when  they  were  together  on  a  visit  with 
a  friend  at  some  distance  from  town,  Johnson  in  a  gaiety 
of  humour  proposed  to  run  a  race  with  Mr.  Payne  —  the 
proposal  was  accepted ;  but,  before  they  had  proceeded 
more  than  half  of  the  intended  distance,  Johnson  caught  his 
little  adversary  up  in  his  arms,  and  without  any  ceremony 
placed  him  upon  the  arm  of  a  tree  which  was  near,  and 
then  continued  running  as  if  he  had  met  with  a  hard  match. 
He  afterwards  returned  with  much  exultation  to  release  his 
friend  from  the  no  very  pleasant  situation  in  which  he  had 
left  him  4. 


1  This  is,  perhaps,  an  amplification 
of  the  story  told ,  post,  p.  415. 

2  ‘  I  flutter  about  my  room  two  or 
three  hours  in  a  morning,  and  when 

my  wings  are  on  can  go  above  an  hun¬ 

dred  yards  at  a  hop,  step  and  jump.’ 


Addison,  The  Guardian ,  No.  112. 

In  my  schoolboy  days  we  always 
said  ‘  hop,  skip  and  jump.’ 

3  Ante ,  i.  388. 

4  For  his  race  with  a  young  lady 
see  ante ,  ii.  278. 

Doctor 


By  Richard  Green  of  Lichfield. 


397 


Doctor,  afterwards  Dean  Maxwell x,  sitting  in  company  with 
Johnson,  they  were  talking  of  the  violence  of  parties,  and  what 
unwarrantable  and  insolent  lengths  mobs  will  sometimes  run  into. 
‘Why,  yes,  Sir,’  says  Johnson,  ‘they’ll  do  any  thing,  no  matter 
how  odd,  or  desperate,  to  gain  their  point ;  they’ll  catch  hold  of 
the  red-hot  end  of  a  poker,  sooner  than  not  get  possession  of  it.’ 

Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  tour  through  North  Wales,  passed  two 
days  at  the  seat  of  Colonel  Middleton  of  Gwynagag1 2 *.  While 
he  remained  there,  the  gardener  caught  a  hare  amidst  some 
potatoe  plants,  and  brought  it  to  his  master,  then  engaged  in 
conversation  with  the  Doctor.  An  order  was  given  to  carry  it 
to  the  cook.  As  soon  as  Johnson  heard  this  sentence,  he  begged 
to  have  the  animal  placed  in  his  arms ;  which  was  no  sooner 
done,  than  approaching  the  window  then  half  open,  he  restored 
the  hare  to  her  liberty,  shouting  after  her  to  accelerate  her 
speed.  ‘What  have  you  done?’  cried  the  Colonel;  ‘why, 
Doctor,  you  have  robbed  my  table  of  a  delicacy,  perhaps 
deprived  us  of  a  dinner.’  ‘  So  much  the  better,  Sir,’  replied 
the  humane  champion  of  a  condemned  hare  ;  ‘  for  if  your  table 
is  to  be  supplied  at  the  expense  of  the  laws  of  hospitality,  I 
envy  not  the  appetite  of  him  who  eats  it.  This,  Sir,  is  not 
a  hare  feres  natures ,  but  one  which  had  placed  itself  under  your 
protection  ;  and  savage  indeed  must  be  that  man  who  does  not 
make  his  hearth  an  asylum  for  the  confiding  stranger  V 


BY  RICHARD  GREEN  OF  LICHFIELD4. 

i 

[Richard  Green  was  an  apothecary  of  Lichfield.  Of  his 
Museum  Johnson  said  to  him: — ‘Sir,  I  should  as  soon  have 


1  For  Dr.  Maxwell’s  Collecta?iea 
see  Life ,  ii.  116. 

2  ‘We  came  (writes  Johnson)  to 

Mr.  Myddelton’s  of  Gwaynynog,  to 
the  first  place,  as  my  Mistress  ob¬ 
served,  where  we  have  been  welcome. 
.  .  .  The  table  was  well  supplied,  ex¬ 

cept  that  the  fruit  was  bad.  It  was 


truly  the  dinner  of  a  country  gentle¬ 
man.  Myddelton  is  the  only  man  who, 
in  Wales,  has  talked  to  me  of  litera¬ 
ture.’  Life ,  v.  443,  452.  They  passed 
not  two  days  but  eight  with  him. 

3  This  story  is  not  in  Mrs.  Piozzi’s 
A  nec dotes. 

4  Croker’s  Boswell ,  ix.  248. 

thought 


398 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


thought  of  building  a  man  of  war  as  of  collecting  such  a  museum. 
Life,  ii.  465.  There  is  a  view  of  it  in  Shaw’s  History  of 
Staffordshire ,  p.  332.  See  also  Letters ,  i.  161,  n.  5.] 

Dr.  Brocklesby,  a  few  days  before  the  death  of  Dr.  Johnson, 
found  on  the  table  Dr.  Kippis’s  account  of  the  Disputes  of  the 
Royal  Society1.  Dr.  Johnson  inquired  of  his  physician  if  he 
had  read  it,  who  answered  in  the  negative.  ‘You  have  sustained 
no  loss,  Sir.  It  is  poor  stuff,  indeed,  a  sad  unscholar-like  per¬ 
formance.  I  could  not  have  believed  that  that  man  would  have 
written  so  ill.’ 

Being  desired  to  call  in  Dr.  Warren2,  he  said  they  might  call 


1  Dr.  Andrew  Kippis  was  the  editbr 
of  a  new  edition  of  the  Biografhia 
Britannica.  ‘  My  friend,  Dr.  Kippis,’ 
wrote  Boswell,  ‘  has  hitherto  dis¬ 
charged  the  task  with  more  im¬ 
partiality  than  might  have  been  ex¬ 
pected  from  a  Separatist.’  Life,  iii. 
174.  In  1784  he  published  Observa¬ 
tions  on  the  late  Contests  in  the  Royal 
Soc  'ety.  The  contests  had  been  about 
the  Foreign  Secretary  and  the  Presi¬ 
dent. 

2  •  When  Dr.  Warren,  in  the  usual 
style,  hoped  that  he  was  better,  his 
answer  was,  “No,  Sir;  you  cannot 
conceive  with  what  acceleration  I 
advance  towards  death.”  ’  Life ,  iv. 
41 1.  See  also  ib.  p.  399 ;  ante ,  ii.  136  n. 
Warren  was  a  member  of  the  Literary 
Club.  In  the  debate  in  the  House  of 
Commons  on  the  King’s  illness  on 
Jan.  6,  1789,  Burke,  alluding  probably 
to  the  Club,  said  : — ‘  He  knew  Dr. 
Warren,  he  belonged  to  a  society 
where  the  Doctor  frequently  came, 
had  always  found  him  an  instructive 
companion,  and  had  ever  heard  him 
considered  as  a  man  of  learning, 
great  integrity  and  honour.’  Pari. 
Hist,  xxvii.  919.  Miss  Burney  de¬ 
scribes  a  curious  scene  one  night, 
where  ‘  the  poor  Queen  in  a  torrent 
of  tears  prepared  herself  for  seeing 


Dr.  Warren,’  after  ‘  he  had  quitted 
his  post  of  watching’ the  King.  Mme. 
D’Arblay’s  Diary ,  iv.  292.  ‘  He  is 

said  to  have  received  in  the  course  of 
one  day  fees  to  the  amount  of  ninety- 
nine  guineas,  and  to  have  made  £8oco 
a  year  ever  since  the  Regency.’ 
Annual  Register ,  1797,  ii.  36. 

Charles  Darwin  quotes  the  follow¬ 
ing  anecdote  in  his  Life  of  Erasmus 
Darwin  (ed.  1887,  p.  105)  : — ‘  A 
gentleman  in  the  last  stage  of  con¬ 
sumption  came  to  Dr.  Darwin  at 
Derby,  and  expressed  himself  to  this 
effect  : — “  I  am  come  from  London 
to  consult  you  as  the  greatest  phy¬ 
sician  in  the  world.  ...  I  know  that 
my  life  hangs  upon  a  thread.  ...  I 
trust  that  you  will  not  deceive  me, 
but  tell  me  without  hesitation  your 
candid  opinion.”  Dr.  Darwin  mi¬ 
nutely  examined  him,  and  said  he 
was  sorry  to  say  there  was  no  hope. 
After  a  pause  of  a  few  minutes  the 
gentleman  said,  “How  long  can  I 
live  ?  ”  The  answer  was,  “  Perhaps 
a  fortnight.”  The  gentleman  seized 
his  hand  and  said,  “  Thank  you, 
Doctor  ;  I  thank  you  ;  my  mind  is 
satisfied  ;  I  now  know  there  is  no 
hope  for  me.”  Dr.  Darwin  then 
said,  “  But  as  you  come  from  London, 
why  did  you  not  consult  Dr.  Warren  ?” 


m 


By  T.  Green. 


399 


in  any  body  they  pleased  ;  and  Warren  was  called.  At  his 
going  away,  ‘You  have  come  in,’  said  Dr.  Johnson,  ‘at  the 
eleventh  hour ;  but  you  shall  be  paid  the  same  with  your 
fellow-labourers.  Francis,  put  into  Dr.  Warren’s  coach  a  copy 
of  the  English  Poets1.’ 

Some  years  before,  some  person  in  a  company  at  Salisbury 2, 
of  which  Dr.  Johnson  was  one,  vouched  for  the  company  that 
there  was  nobody  in  it  afraid  of  death.  ‘  Speak  for  yourself, 
Sir,’  said  Johnson,  ‘for  indeed  I  am.’  ‘I  did  not  say  of  dying,’ 
replied  the  other ;  ‘  but  of  death,  meaning  its  consequences.’ 
‘And  so  I  mean,’  rejoined  the  Doctor;  ‘I  am  very  seriously 
afraid  of  the  consequences  Y 


BY  T.  GREEN. 

[From  the  Diary  of  a  Lover  of  Literature  by  T.  Green  of 
Ipswich,  4to.  1810;  and  since  continued  in  the  Gentleman’s 
Magazine.  Croker’s  Boswell ,  x.  141.] 

Mr.  Monney  told  me  he  had  often  met  Johnson,  and  imitated 
his  manner  very  happily.  Johnson  came  on  a  visit  to  the 

r 


“Alas!  Doctor,  I  am  Dr.  Warren.” 
He  died  in  a  week  or  two  afterwards.’ 

According  to  the  Annual  Register 
Warren  ‘  died  of  spasms  in  his 
stomach  very  unexpectedly,  at  a  mo¬ 
ment  when  Sir  G.  Baker  and  Dr. 
Pitcairn  were  most  sanguine  in  their 
hopes  of  his  recovery.  His  complaint 
had  been  a  violent  erysipelas  in  his 
head.’  This  is  confirmed  by  Lord 
Charlemont,  who  wrote  on  Aug.  19, 
1797: — ‘As  for  Dr.  Warren,  death 
owed  him  a  grudge  for  the  numerous 
victims  rescued  from  his  dart,  and  at 
length  revenged  himself  by  that  fatal 
blow  on  the  stomach.’  Hist.  MSS. 
Com .,  Thirteenth  Report,  App.  viii. 
281.  ‘  Dr.  Warren  used  to  say  that  if 


a  physician  had  common  sense  when 
he  first  settled  at  Bath,  he  soon  lost 
it  all  in  looking  out  for  bile  and  giving 
in  to  the  medical  cant  of  the  place.’ 
European  Magazine ,  1798,  p.  240. 

1  The  Rev.  C.  G.  Andrews,  Would- 
ham  Rectory,  Rochester,  a  great- 
grandson  of  Dr.  Heberden,  has  the 
copy  of  the  Lives  that  belonged  to 
Dr.  Heberden,  inscribed  (not  in 
Johnson’s  writing)  ‘  From  the  author.’ 

2  Johnson  was  twice  at  Salisbury — 
once  in  1762,  on'  his  way  to  Devon¬ 
shire  (Taylor’s  Rey?iolds,  i.  214),  and 
once  in  1783,  sixteen  months  before 
his  death.  Life,  iv.  234. 

3  Ante,  ii.  202. 

‘  Apr£s  avoir  parle  de  la  faussete 

President 


400 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


President  of  his  College  (Jesus)  at  Oxford,  Dr.  Bernard x.  Dr.  Ber¬ 
nard  ventured  to  put  a  joke  upon  Johnson  ;  but  being  terrified 
by  a  tremendous  snarl,  ‘  Indeed,  indeed,  Doctor,  believe  me,' 
said  he,  ‘I  meant  nothing.’  ‘Sir,’  said  Johnson,  ‘if  you  mean 
nothing,  say  nothing,’  and  was  quiet  for  the  rest  of  the  evening. 


BY  OZIAS  HUMPHRY,  R.A. 

[‘  In  a  letter  to  his  brother,  the  Rev.  William  Humphry,  dated 
September  19,  1764.’  Croker’s  Boswell ,  ix.  257. 

For  Johnson’s  letters  to  Humphry  see  Life ,  iv.  268,  and  for 
anecdotes  of  him  see  Northcote’s  Reynolds ,  ii.  174,  248.] 

The  day  after  I  wrote  my  last  letter  to  you  I  was  introduced 
to  Mr.  Johnson  by  a  friend :  we  passed  through  three  very  dirty 
rooms  to  a  little  one  that  looked  like  an  old  counting-house, 
where  this  great  man  was  sat  at  his  breakfast 2.  The  furniture 
of  this  room  was  a  very  large  deal  writing-desk3,  an  old  walnut- 
tree  table,  and  five  ragged  chairs  of  four  different  sets.  I  was 
very  much  struck  with  Mr.  Johnson’s  appearance,  and  could 
hardly  help  thinking  him  a  madman  for  some  time,  as  he  sat 
waving  over  his  breakfast  like  a  lunatic  4. 


de  tant  de  vertus  apparentes,  il  est 
raisonnable  de  dire  quelque  chose  de 
la  faussete  du  m^pris  de  la  mort.  .  .  . 
II  y  a  de  la  difference  entre  soufifrir  la 
mort  constamment,  et  ia  mepriser. 
Le  premier  est  assez  ordinaire  ;  mais 
je  crois  que  l’autre  n’est  jamais  sin¬ 
cere.  ...  La  raison,  dans  laquelle  on 
croit  trouver  tant  de  ressources,  est 
trop  faible  en  cette  rencontre  pour 
nous  persuader  de  ce  que  nous  vou- 
lons.  C’est  elle  au  contraire  qui 
nous  trahit  le  plus  souvent,  et  qui, 
au  lieu  de  nous  inspirer  le  mepris 
de  la  mort,  sert  k  nous  ddcouvrir 
ce  qu’elle  a  d’affreux  et  de  terrible.’ 


La  Rochefoucauld,  Maximes,  No. 
528. 

1  Johnson  was  for  some  days  in 
June,  1782,  the  guest  of  Dr.  Edwards, 
Vice-Principal  of  Jesus  College. 
Letters ,  ii.  257,  n.  4;  261,  n.  1.  No 
Principal  [not  President]  of  Jesus 
bore  the  name  of  Bernard.  The  story 
which  follows  resembles  one  told  of 
the  elder  Pitt. 

2  Johnson  in  1764  was  living  in 
Inner  Temple  Lane.  Life ,  i.  350,  n.  3, 
375,  n.  1  ;  iii.  406  n. 

3  No  doubt  the  desk  in  the  Library 
of  Pembroke  College. 

4  Hogarth,  eleven  years  earlier, 

He 


By  Ozias  Humphry ,  R.A. 


401 


He  is  a  very  large  man,  and  was  dressed  in  a  dirty  brown 
coat  and  waistcoat,  with  breeches  that  were  brown  also  (though 
they  had  been  crimson),  and  an  old  black  wig :  his  shirt  collar 
and  sleeves  were  unbuttoned  ;  his  stockings  were  down  about 
his  feet,  which  had  on  them,  by  way  of  slippers,  an  old 
pair  of  shoes.  He  had  not  been  up  long  when  we  called  on 
him,  which  was  near  one  o’clock :  he  seldom  goes  to  bed  till 
near  two  in  the  morning ;  and  Mr.  Reynolds  tells  me  he  generally 
drinks  tea  about  an  hour  after  he  has  supped  \  We  had  been 
some  time  with  him  before  he  began  to  talk,  but  at  length  he 
began,  and,  faith,  to  some  purpose !  every  thing  he  says  is  as 
correct  as  a  second  edition 2 :  ’t  is  almost  impossible  to  argue  with 
him,  he  is  so  sententious  and  so  knowing. 


I  asked  him,  if  he  had  seen  Mr.  Reynolds’s  pictures  lately. 
‘No,  Sir.’  ‘He  has  painted  many  fine  ones.’  5 1  know  he  has,’ 
he  said,  ‘  as  I  hear  he  has  been  fully  employed.’  I  told  him, 
I  imagined  Mr.  Reynolds  was  not  much  pleased  to  be 
overlooked  by  the  Court 3,  as  he  must  be  conscious  of  his 
superior  merit.  ‘  Not  at  all  displeased,’  he  said,  ‘  Mr.  Reynolds 
has  too  much  good  sense  to  be  affected  by  it :  when  he  was  younger 
he  believed  it  would  have  been  agreeable  ;  but  now  he  does 
not  want  their  favour.  It  has  ever  been  more  profitable  to 
be  popular  among  the  people  than  favoured  by  the  King :  it 
is  no  reflection  on  Mr.  Reynolds  not  to  be  employed  by  them  ; 
but  it  will  be  a  reflection  for  ever  on  the  Court  not  to  have 
employed  him.  The  King,  perhaps,  knows  nothing  but  that 


calling  on  Richardson,  ‘  while  he  was 
talking,  perceived  a  person  standing 
at  a  window  in  the  room,  shaking  his 
head,  and  rolling  himself  about  in  a 
strange  ridiculous  manner.  He  con¬ 
cluded  that  he  was  an  ideot,  whom 
his  relations  had  put  under  the  care 
of  Mr.  Richardson.’  It  was  Johnson. 
Life ,  i.  146. 

1  ‘  With  tea  solaces  the  midnight.’ 
Ib.  i.  313,  n.  4. 

2  Ante ,  ii.  391. 

3  Five  years  later  Reynolds  was 

VOL.  II.  D 


knighted,  when  Johnson,  who  was  at 
that  time  an  abstainer,  ‘  drank  one 
glass  of  wine  to  the  health  of  Sir 
Joshua  Reynolds.’  Ante ,  ii.  322.  See 
also  Life ,  iv.  366. 

‘  It  has  often  been  remarked  that 
the  King  never  commissioned  Sir 
Joshua  for  a  single  picture ;  indeed 
he  never  sat  to  him  but  once,  when 
his  portrait  was  painted  by  him  for 
the  Royal  Academy.’  Northcote’s 
Reynolds ,  ii.  80. 

d 


he 


402 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


he  employs  the  best  painter ;  and  as  for  the  Queen,  I  don’t 
imagine  she  has  any  other  idea  of  a  picture  but  that  it  is  a  thing 
composed  of  many  colours/ 

When  Mr.  Johnson  understood  that  I  had  lived  some  time 
in  Bath,  he  asked  me  many  questions  that  led,  indeed,  to 
a  general  description  of  it.  He  seemed  very  well  pleased  ;  but 
remarked  that  men  and  women  bathing  together  as  they  do 
at  Bath  is  an  instance  of  barbarity  that  he  believed  could  not 
be  paralleled  in  any  part  of  the  world  \  He  entertained  us 
about  an  hour  and  a  half  in  this  manner ;  then  we  took  our 
leave.  I  must  not  omit  to  add,  that  I  am  informed  he  denies 
himself  many  conveniences,  though  he  cannot  well  afford  any, 
that  he  may  have  more  in  his  power  to  give  in  charities. 


BY  DR.  LETTSOM. 

[From  Memorials  of  John  Coakley  Lettsom ,  London,  1817, 
2  vols. ;  vol  1,  part  2,  p.  78.] 

Jan.  13,  1785. 

Dr.  Johnson  was  a  pious  man;  attached,  I  confess,  to  estab¬ 
lished  system,  but  it  was  from  principle.  In  company  I  neither 
found  him  austere  nor  dogmatical ;  he  certainly  was  not  polite, 
but  he  was  not  rude ;  he  was  familiar  with  suitable  company ; 
but  his  language  in  conversation  was  sententious ;  he  was 
sometimes  jocular,  but  you  felt  as  if  you  were  playing  with 
a  lion’s  paw.  His  body  was  large,  his  features  strong,  his  face 
scarred  and  furrowed  with  the  scrophula ;  he  had  a  heavy  look ; 
but  when  he  spoke  it  was  like  lightning  out  of  a  dark  cloud. 

1  Miss  Willis  in  Humphry  Clinker  in  which  they  fix  their  handkerchiefs, 
(ed.  1792,  i.  77)  describes  the  bath  : —  to  wipe  the  sweat  from  their  faces.’ 
‘  The  ladies  wear  jackets  and  petti-  See  also  ib.  pp.  85,  90. 
coats  of  brown  linen,  with  chip  hats, 


In 


Miscellaneous  A  necdotes. 


403 


Feb.  8,  1785. 

In  social  company,  when  he  unbended  from  critical  austerity, 
he  afforded  the  finest  dessert  to  a  rational  repast.  I  once  dined 
with  him,  Wilkes,  Boswell,  and  Lee  the  American 1 ;  what 
a  group !  ‘  It  was  ungrateful,’  said  Lee,  ‘  for  the  Scotch  who, 

when  emigrants,  always  found  an  asylum  in  America,  to  be  the 
most  violent  opponents  to  American  independence,  and  to  oppose 
their  benefactors  in  the  cabinet  and  in  the  field.’  ‘The  obli¬ 
gation,’  replied  Boswell,  ‘  was  not  so  considerable,  when  it  is 
understood  that  the  Americans  sent  the  Scotch  emigrants  to 
Cape  Fear,  and  such-like  barren  regions.’  ‘I  think,’  said  John¬ 
son,  ‘  they  acted  like  philosophers.’  ‘Why?’  Boswell  inquired. 
‘  Because,’  added  Johnson,  ‘if  you  turn  a  starved  cow  into  clover, 
it  will  soon  kill  itself  by  the  sudden  transition ;  and  if  the 
Scotch,  famished  in  their  own  country,  had  been  placed  in  the 
more  fruitful  parts  of  America,  they  would  have  burst  by 
a  bellyful,  like  the  cattle  in  clover2.’  Nobody  enjoyed  a  laugh 
at  the  expense  of  the  Scotch  more  than  Boswell,  at  least  when 
it  came  from  Johnson ;  and  the  latter  appeared  to  do  it  in 
play;  but  his  play  was  as  rough  as  that  of  a  bear,  and  you 
felt  fearful  of  coming  within  the  embraces  of  so  fierce  an  animal  ’ 
(p.  84). 


MISCELLANEOUS  ANECDOTES. 

[From  Croker’s  Boswell ,  vol.  x.  pp.  131-142.]  » 

A  gentleman  once  told  Dr.  Johnson,  that  a  friend  of  his, 
looking  into  the  Dictionary  which  the  Doctor  had  lately  pub¬ 
lished,  could  not  find  the  word  ocean.  ‘  Not  find  ocean !  ’ 

1  Life ,  iii.  68  ;  Letters ,  i.  39 7.  is  comparative.  The  Scotch  would 

2  ‘  Mr.  Arthur  Lee  mentioned  some  not  know  it  to  be  barren.”  ’  Life , 
Scotch  who  had  taken  possession  of  iii.  7 6.  Boswell’s  ‘long  head’  (ib. 
a  barren  part  of  America,  and  won-  iv.  166),  which  retained  a  great  deal 
dered  why  they  should  choose  it.  of  the  conversation,  here  failed  him, 
JOHNSON.  “Why,  Sir,  all  barrenness  for  all  that  Lettsom  reports  is  new. 

D  d  2  exclaimed 


404 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


exclaimed  our  Lexicographer ;  ‘  Sir,  I  doubt  the  veracity  of 
your  information!’  He  instantly  stalked  into  his  library;  and, 
opening  the  work  in  question  with  the  utmost  impatience,  at 
last  triumphantly  put  his  finger  upon  the  subject  of  research, 
adding,  ‘  There,  Sir ;  there  is  ocean !  ’  The  gentleman  was 
preparing  to  apologise  for  the  mistake;  but  Dr.  Johnson  good- 
naturedly  dismissed  the  subject,  with  ‘  Never  mind  it,  Sir ; 
perhaps  your  friend  spells  ocean  with  an  s  V 


The  late  Mr.  Crauford,  of  Hyde  Park  Corner,  being  engaged 
to  dinner,  where  Dr.  Johnson  was  to  be,  resolved  to  pay  his 
court  to  him ;  and,  having  heard  that  he  preferred  Donne’s 
Satires  to  Pope’s  version  of  them,  said,  ‘  Do  you  know,  Dr. 
Johnson,  that  I  like  Dr.  Donne’s  original  Satires  better  than 
Pope’s.’  Johnson  said,  ‘Well,  Sir,  I  can’t  help  that1 2.’ 

Miss  Johnson,  one  of  Sir  Joshua’s  nieces3  (afterwards  Mrs. 
Deane),  was  dining  one  day  at  her  uncle’s  with  Dr.  Johnson 
and  a  large  party :  the  conversation  happening  to  turn  on  music, 
Johnson  spoke  very  contemptuously  of  that  art,  and  added, 
‘that  no  man  of  talent,  or  whose  mind  was  capable  of  better 
things,  ever  would  or  could  devote  his  time  and  attention  to 
so  idle  and  frivolous  a  pursuit.’  The  young  lady,  who  was 
very  fond  of  music,  whispered  her  next  neighbour,  ‘  I  wonder 
what  Dr.  Johnson  thinks  of  King  David.’  Johnson  overheard 
her,  and,  with  great  good  humour  and  complacency,  said, 
‘  Madam,  I  thank  you  ;  I  stand  rebuked  before  you,  and  promise 
that,  on  one  subject  at  least,  you  shall  never  hear  me  talk 
nonsense  again.’ 

The  honours  of  the  University  of  Cambridge  were  once 


1  Johnson,  in  the  Preface  to  the 
Dictionary ,  writes  : — ‘  It  is  remark¬ 
able  that  in  reviewing  my  collection 
[of  authorities]  I  found  the  word  SEA 
unexemplified.’  Works ,  v.  45. 

2  ‘  Pope  published  a  revival  in 
smoother  numbers  of  Dr.  Donne’s 

Satires.  .  .  .  He  seems  to  have  known 
their  imbecility,  and  therefore  sup¬ 


pressed  them  while  he  was  yet  con¬ 
tending  to  rise  in  reputation,  but 
ventured  them  when  he  thought  their 
deficiencies  more  likely  to  be  im¬ 
puted  to  Donne  than  to  himself.’ 
Works ,  viii.  295. 

3  Reynolds’s  sister  Elizabeth  mar¬ 
ried  William  Johnson.  Taylor’s 
Reynolds ,  i.  4. 


performed 


Miscellaneous  Anecdotes. 


4°5 


performed  to  Dr.  Johnson,  by  Dr.  Watson,  afterwards  Bishop 
of  Llandaff,  and  then  Professor  of  Chemistry,  &c. 1  After 
having  spent  the  morning  in  seeing  all  that  was  worthy  of 
notice,  the  sage  dined  at  his  conductor’s  table,  which  was  sur¬ 
rounded  by  various  persons,  all  anxious  to  see  so  remarkable 
a  character,  but  the  moment  was  not  favourable ;  he  had  been 
wearied  by  his  previous  exertions,  and  would  not  talk.  After 
the  party  had  dispersed,  he  said,  ‘  I  was  tired,  and  would  not 
take  the  trouble,  or  I  could  have  set  them  right  upon  several 
subjects,  Sir ;  for  instance,  the  gentleman  who  said  he  could 
not  imagine  how  any  pleasure  could  be  derived  from  hunting, — 
the  reason  is,  because  man  feels  his  own  vacuity 2  less  in  action 
than  when  at  rest.’ 

Mr.  Williams,  the  rector  of  Wellesbourne,  in  Warwickshire, 
mentioned  having  once,  when  a  young  man,  performed  a  stage¬ 
coach  journey  with  Dr.  Johnson,  who  took  his  place  in  the 
vehicle,  provided  with  a  little  book,  which  his  companion  soon 
discovered  to  be  Lucian3:  he  occasionally  threw  it  aside,  if 
struck  by  any  remark  made  by  his  fellow-travellers,  and  poured 
forth  his  knowledge  and  eloquence  in  a  full  stream,  to  the  delight 
and  astonishment  of  his  auditors.  Accidentally,  the  first  subject 
which  attracted  him  was  the  digestive  faculties  of  dogs,  from 
whence  he  branched  off  as  to  the  powers  of  digestion  in  various 
species  of  animals,  discovering  such  stores  of  information,  that 
this  particular  point  might  have  been  supposed  to  have  formed 
his  especial  study,  and  so  it  was  with  every  other  subject  started. 
The  strength  of  his  memory  was  not  less  astonishing  than  his 
eloquence  ;  he  quoted  from  various  authors,  either  in  support 
of  his  own  argument  or  to  confute  those  of  his  companions,  as 
readily,  and  apparently  as  accurately,  as  if  the  works  had  been 
in  his  hands.  The  coach  halted,  as  usual,  for  dinner,  which 
seemed  to  be  a  deeply  interesting  business  to  Johnson,  who 


1  For  Johnson’s  visit  to  Cambridge, 
see  Life ,  i.  487,  517  ;  Letters ,  i.  183  n . 
Watson  was  a  Fellow  of  Trinity 
College.  See  a?ite,  i.  307  n. 

2  ‘  I  am  now  to  review  the  last  year, 

and  find  little  but  dismal  vacuity, 


neither  business  nor  pleasure.’  Ante , 
i.  88. 

3  Johnson  in  the  Harwich  stage¬ 
coach  read  Pomponius  Mela  de  Situ 
Or&is,  and  in  the  Oxford  stage-coach 
Euripides.  Life ,  i.  465  ;  iv.  31 1. 

vehemently 


406 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


vehemently  attacked  a  dish  of  stewed  carp,  using  his  fingers 
only  in  feeding  himself1. 

Bishop  Percy  was  at  one  time  on  a  very  intimate  footing  with 
Dr.  Johnson,  and  the  Doctor  one  day  took  Percy's  little  daughter 
upon  his  knee,  and  asked  her  what  she  thought  of  Pilgrim's 
Progress 2?  The  child  answered,  that  she  had  not  read  it. 
‘No!’  replied  the  Doctor;  ‘then  I  would  not  give  one  farthing 
for  you ;  ’  and  he  set  her  down  and  took  no  further  notice 
of  her. 

My  venerable  friend,  Dr.  Fisher,  of  the  Charter-house,  now 
in  his  eighty-fifth  year,  informs  me  (says  Mr.  Croker)  that  he 
was  one  of  the  party  who  dined  with  Dr.  Johnson  at  University 
College,  Oxford,  in  March,  1 776 3.  There  were  present,  he 
says,  Dr.  Wetherell,  Johnson,  Boswell,  Coulson,  Scott,  Gwynn, 
Dr.  Chandler  the  traveller,  and  Fisher,  then  a  young  Fellow  of  the 
College4.  He  recollects  one  passage  of  the  conversation  at 
dinner : — Boswell  quoted  ‘  Qimn  Deus  vult  perdere  prius  de- 
mentat5,'  and  asked  where  it  was.  After  a  pause  Dr.  Chandler 


1  ‘  I  took  the  liberty  to  observe  to 
Dr.  Johnson,  that  he  always  eat  fish 
with  his  fingers.  “  Yes,”  said  he  ; 
“  but  it  is  because  I  am  short-sighted, 
and  afraid  of  bones,  for  which  reason 
I  am  not  fond  of  eating  many  kinds 
of  fish,  because  I  must  use  my 
fingers.”’  Life,  v.  206. 

2  Ante,  i.  332. 

3  Life ,  ii.  445. 

4  For  Dr.  Wetherell,  the  Master  of 
the  College,  see  ib.  ii.  440,  and  for 
Coulson,  Letters ,  i.  325.  Scott  should 
mean  William  Scott  (Lord  Stowell) 
who  had  not  yet  left  Oxford  for 
London  ;  but  ‘  he  was  gone  to  the 
country.’  Life ,  ii.  440.  John  Scott 
(Earl  of  Eldon),  who  had  been  in 
1774-5  Fisher’s  colleague  as  a  tutor, 
but  was  married  and  settled  in 
London,  says  he  was  at  the  dinner. 
Twiss’s  Eldon ,  ed.  1846,  i.  65.  For 

Gwynn,  sttLife,\\.  438.  OfChandler’s 


Travels  Johnson  wrote  : — ‘  Do  not 
buy  them ;  they  are  duller  than 
Twiss’s.’  Letters ,  i.  321. 

5  The  ‘learned  friend’  mentioned 
in  my  note  on  this  passage  (Life,  iv. 
1 81)  was  the  late  Professor  Chandler, 
Fellow  of  Pembroke  College,  Oxford. 

Burton  quotes  the  saying  as  ‘  Quos 
Jupiter  perdit  dementat.’  Anatomy 
of  Mel ancholy,  ed.  1660,  p.  6. 

In  a  letter  in  the  Gentleman' s 
Magazine,  1771,  p.  262,  signed  W.  W. 
(perhaps  William  Warburton),  For - 
tuna  quern  vult  perdere  stultum  facit 
is  quoted  as  a  fragment  of  Publius 
Syrus. 

Dryden  translates  it : — 

‘For  those  whom  God  to  ruin  has 
designed 

He  fits  for  fate,  and  first  destroys 
their  mind.’ 

The  Hind  and  the  Panther, 
Part  iii.  1.  2387. 


said 


Miscellaneous  Anecdotes. 


407 


said  in  Horace, — another  pause  ;  then  Fisher  remarked,  that 
he  knew  no  metre  in  Horace  to  which  the  words  could  be 
reduced;  upon  which  Johnson  said  dictatorially  ‘The  young 
man  is  right.’  Dr.  Fisher  recollects  another  conversation  during 
this  visit  to  Oxford,  when  there  was  a  Mr.  Mortimer x,  a  shallow, 
vulgar  man,  who  had  no  sense  of  Johnson’s  superiority,  and 
talked  a  great  deal  of  flippant  nonsense.  At  last  he  said,  that 
‘  metaphysics  were  all  stuff — nothing  but  vague  words.’  ‘  Sir,’ 
said  Johnson,  ‘do  you  know  the  meaning  of  the  word  meta¬ 
physics ?’  ‘To  be  sure,’  said  the  other.  ‘Then,  Sir,  you  must 
know  that  two  and  two  make  four,  is  a  metaphysical  pro¬ 
position.’ — ‘  I  deny  it,’  rejoined  Mortimer,  ‘ ’t  is  an  arithmetical 
one;  I  deny  it  utterly.’  ‘Why,  then,  Sir,’  said  Johnson,  rif 
you  deny  that  we  arrive  at  that  conclusion  by  a  metaphysical 
process,  I  can  only  say,  that  plus  in  unct  hora  unus  asinus  negabit , 
quam  centum  philosophi  in  centum  annis  probaverint V 

The  following  letter  was  written  with  an  agitated  hand, 
from  the  very  chamber  of  death,  by  the  amiable  Bennet 
Langton,  and  obviously  interrupted  by  his  feelings1 2  3.  It  is  not 
addressed,  but  Mr.  Langton’s  family  believe  it  was  intended  for 
Mr.  Boswell : 

‘  My  DEAR  Sir, — After  many  conflicting  hopes  and  fears 
respecting  the  event  of  this  heavy  return  of  illness  which  has 
assailed  our  honoured  friend,  Dr.  Johnson,  since  his  arrival  from 
Lichfield,  about  four  days  ago  the  appearances  grew  more  and 
more  awful,  and  this  afternoon  at  eight  o’clock,  when  I  arrived 
at  his  house  to  see  how  he  should  be  going  on,  I  was  acquainted 


1  John  James  wrote  on  Sept.  16, 
1781: — ‘No  news  in  Oxford,  except 
the  death  of  the  Head  of  Lincoln, 
who  is  succeeded  by  one  Mortimer, 
a  notorious  sloven.  The  blackguard 
Stinton  was  a  beau  to  him.’  Letters 
of  Radcliffe  and  James ,  p.  155. 

2  According  to  Lord  Eldon,  John¬ 
son  quoted  these  words  as  the  saying 
of  ‘an  author.’  Twiss’s  Eldon,  ed. 
1846,  i.  65. 

3  Hawkins  writes  : — ‘  At  eleven, 


the  same  evening,  Mr.  Langton  came 
to  me,  and  in  an  agony  of  mind  gave 
me  to  understand  that  our  friend  had 
wounded  himself  in  several  parts  of 
the  body.’  Ante ,  ii.  134.  If  this  ac¬ 
count  is  true,  Langton  thought  that 
Johnson  had  wounded  himself  in  the 
intention,  not  to  lengthen  his  life,  as 
was  really  the  case,  but  to  shorten 
it.  It  was  perhaps  the  shock  given 
on  learning  of  these  wounds  which 
interrupted  the  letter. 


at 


408 


Minor  A  necdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


at  the  door,  that  about  three  quarters  of  an  hour  before,  he  had 
breathed  his  last.  I  am  now  writing  in  the  room  where  his 
venerable  remains  exhibit  a  spectacle,  the  interesting  solemnity 
of  which,  difficult  as  it  would  be  in  any  sort  to  find  terms  to 
express,  so  to  you,  my  dear  Sir,  whose  own  sensations  will  paint 
it  so  strongly,  it  would  be  of  all  men  the  most  superfluous  to 
attempt  to - ’ 

I  have  (says  Mr.  W.  E.  Surtees)  heard  my  grandmother, 
a  daughter,  by  his  first  wife,  of  the  Dean  of  Ossory1  (who 
married  secondly  Miss  Charlotte  Cotterell),  speak  of  Dr.  Johnson, 
as  having  frequently  seen  him  in  her  youth.  On  one  occasion, 
probably  about  1762-3,  he  spent  a  day  or  two  in  the  country 
with  her  father,  and  went  with  the  family  to  see  the  house  of 
a  rich  merchant.  The  owner — all  bows  and  smiles— seemed  to 
exult  in  the  opportunity  of  displaying  his  costly  articles  of  virtii 
to  his  visitor,  and,  in  going  through  their  catalogue,  observed, 
‘And  this,  Dr.  Johnson,  is  Vesuvius  Caesar.’  My  grandmother, 
then  but  a  girl,  could  not  suppress  a  titter,  when  the  Doctor 
turned  round,  and  thus,  alike  to  the  discomfiture  of  the  merchant 
and  herself,  sternly  rebuked  her  aloud,  ‘What  is  the  child 
laughing  at  ?  Ignorance  is  a  subject  for  pity — not  for  laughter.’ 


BY  DR.  JOHN  MOORE. 

[From  his  Life  of  Smollett,  prefixed  to  Smollett’s  Works ,  ed. 
I797>  vo1-  i-  p.  I54-] 

In  Boswell’s  Life  of  Johnson'1  mention  is  made  of  an  observa¬ 
tion  of  his  respecting  the  manner  in  which  argument  ought  to  be 
rated.  As  Mr.  Boswell  has  not  recorded  this  with  his  usual 
precision,  and  as  I  was  present  at  Mr.  Hoole’s  at  the  time 
mentioned  by  Mr.  Boswell,  I  shall  here  insert  what  passed, 
of  which  I  have  a  perfect  recollection.  Mention  having  been 

1  John  Lewis,  Dean  of  Ossory,  Cotterel.  Life,  i.  382;  Letters,  ii.  310. 
married  Johnson’s  friend  Charlotte  2  Life,  iv.  281. 


made 


By  John  Nichols. 


409 

made  that  counsel  were  to  be  heard  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  one  of  the  company  at  Mr.  Hoole’s  asked  Sir  James 
Johnston1  if  he  intended  to  be  present.  He  answered,  that  he 
believed  he  should  not,  because  he  paid  little  regard  to  the 
arguments  of  counsel  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons. 
‘Wherefore  do  you  pay  little  regard  to  their  arguments,  Sir?’ 
said  Dr.  Johnson.  ‘Because/  replied  Sir  James,  ‘  they  argue  for 
their  fee.’  ‘What  is  it  to  you,  Sir,’  rejoined  Dr.  Johnson,  ‘what 
they  argue  for  ?  you  have  nothing  to  do  with  their  motive,  but 
you  ought  to  weigh  their  argument.  Sir,  you  seem  to  confound 
argument  with  assertion,  but  there  is  an  essential  distinction 
between  them.  Assertion  is  like  an  arrow  shot  from  a  long 
bow ;  the  force  with  which  it  strikes  depends  on  the  strength 
of  the  arm  that  draws  it.  But  argument  is  like  an  arrow 
from  a  cross-bow,  which  has  equal  force  whether  shot  by  a  boy 
or  a  giant.’ 

The  whole  company  was  struck  with  the  aptness  and  beauty 
of  this  illustration ;  and  one  of  them  said,  ‘  That  is,  indeed,  one 
of  the  most  just  and  admirable  illustrations  that  I  ever  heard  in 
my  life.’  ‘Sir,’  said  Dr.  Johnson,  ‘the  illustration  is  none  of 
mine — you  will  find  it  in  Bacon2/ 


BY  JOHN  NICHOLS. 

[From  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the  Eighteenth  Century ,  9  vols. 
8vo.  1812-15;  vol.  ix.  p.  779,  & c.  Croker’s  Boswell ,  x.  62.] 

Of  his  birth-place,  Lichfield,  Dr.  Johnson  always  spoke  with 
a  laudable  enthusiasm.  ‘  Its  inhabitants,5  he  said,  ‘  were  more 


1  Member  for  Dumfries.  His 
brother  married  a  lady  who  inherited 
the  wealth  of  Pulteney,  Earl  of 
Bath.  Letters  of  Hume  to  Strahan, 
p.  203.  Burns  thus  mentions  Sir 
James  in  his  Epistle  to  Robert 
Graham  : — 

‘What  Whig  but  melts  for  good 
Sir  James  ? 


Dear  to  his  country  by  the  names 
Friend,  patron,  benefactor ! 
Not  Pulteney’s  wealth  can  Pul¬ 
teney  save ! 

And  Hopeton  falls,  the  generous 
brave ! 

And  Stewart,  bold  as  Hector.5 
2  The  quotation  is  from  Boyle. 
Life,  iv.  281,  n.  3. 


orthodox 


4io 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


orthodox  in  their  religion,  more  pure  in  their  language,  and  more 
polite  in  their  manners  than  any  other  town  in  the  kingdom 1 ;  ’ 
and  he  often  lamented  that  ‘  no  city  of  equal  antiquity  and  worth 
has  been  so  destitute  of  a  native  to  record  its  fame,  and  transmit 
its  history  to  posterity  V 

Mr.  Cradock  informs  me,  that  he  once  accompanied  Dr.  John¬ 
son  and  Mr.  Steevens  to  Marybone  Gardens,  to  see  La  Serva 
Padrona  performed3.  ...  Mr.  Steevens,  being  quite  weary  of  the 
Burletta,  exclaimed,  ‘There  is  no  plot ;  it  is  merely  an  old  fellow 


1  ‘  Dr.  Johnson  expatiated  in  praise 
of  Lichfield  and  its  inhabitants,  who, 
he  said,  were  “  the  most  sober,  decent 
people  in  England,  the  genteelest  in 
proportion  to  their  wealth,  and  spoke 
the  purest  English.’”  Life ,  ii.  463. 

‘  Sir  (said  he)  we  are  a  city  of  philo¬ 
sophers,  we  work  with  our  heads, 
and  make  the  boobies  of  Birmingham 
work  for  us  with  their  hands.’  Jb.  p. 
464. 

Staffordshire,  in  which  Lichfield  is 
situated,  was  a  stronghold  of  Toryism 
and  even  of  Jacobitism.  Ib.  iii.  326. 

Smollett,  writing  of  Lichfield  in 
1747,  says: — ‘Even  the  females  at 
their  assembly,  and  the  gentlemen 
at  the  races,  affected  to  wear  the 
checquered  stuff  by  which  the  Prince 
Pretender  and  his  followers  had  been 
distinguished.  Divers  noblemen  on 
the  course  were  insulted  as  apos¬ 
tates.’  Smollett’s  England ,  ed.  1 800, 
iii.  259. 

Nevertheless,  ‘  in  an  answer  of  the 
Bailiffs  and  Justices  of  the  Peace  of 
the  City  of  Lichfield,  dated  March  8, 
1743,  directed  to  the  Lords  of  his 
Majesty’s  Council,  they  say  that  they 
have  made  diligent  search  through¬ 
out  the  city,  and  certify  that  all  was 
peaceable  and  quiet ;  that  there  was 
“no  Papist  (save  only  two  or  three 
women)  or  Nonjuror  in  the  city; 
neither  have  we  amongst  us  any 
Quaker,  or  above  two  Dissenters 


from  the  established  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land,  under  any  denomination  what¬ 
soever  ;  ”  and  that  the  whole  city  was 
zealously  attached  to  his  Majesty’s 
person  and  government.’  Harwood’s 
History  of  Lichfield,  p.  309. 

Lord  Stanhope  wrote  from  Lichfield 
on  Oct.  6,  1705,  to  Atterbury: — ‘I 
must  confess  (except  it  be  your  brother 
Binckes)  I  lose  no  conversation  by 
being  deaf  in  this  place,  which  is  just 
as  well  stocked  with  good  manners 
and  polite  conversation  as  your  friend 
Dr.  Wake  is  with  deep  learning,  solid 
sense  and  the  knack  of  writing  in¬ 
telligible  English  !  ’  Atterbury’s  Cor¬ 
respondence ,  ii.  25.  Binckes,  a  Pre¬ 
bendary  of  Lichfield,  was  supposed 
to  be  the  author  of  a  pamphlet  which 
gave  rise  to  a  controversy  between 
Atterbury  and  Wake.  Lb. 

2  In  1806  the  Rev.  Thomas  Har¬ 
wood  published  a  History  of  Lich¬ 
field. 

3  La  Serva  Padrona  was  a  burletta 
composed  by  Pergolesi,  a  Neapolitan 
who  was  born  in  1704  ;  it  was  trans¬ 
lated  into  English  by  Stephen 
Storace,  father  of  the  composer  of 
that  name.  Memoirs  of  J.  Cradock , 
iii.  345. 

For  another  visit  to  the  gardens 
where,  if  we  can  trust  Steevens  (a 
very  untrustworthy  authority),  John¬ 
son  was  ‘  the  ringleader  of  a  success¬ 
ful  riot,’  see  Life,  iv.  324. 


cheated 


By  John  Nichols. 


411 


cheated  and  deluded  by  his  servant ;  it  is  quite  foolish  and 
unnatural.’  Johnson  instantly  replied,  ‘  Sir,  it  is  not  unnatural. 
It  is  a  scene  that  is  acted  in  my  family  every  day  in  my  life.’ 
This  did  not  allude  to  the  maid  servant,  however,  so  much  as  to 
two  distressed  ladies,  whom  he  generously  supported  in  his 
house,. .  .who  were  always  quarrelling1.  These  ladies  presided  at 
Dr.  Johnson’s  table  by  turns  when  there  was  company  ;  which,  of 
course,  would  produce  disputes.  I  ventured  one  day  to  say, 
‘Surely,  Dr.  Johnson,  Roxana  for  this  time  should  take  place  of 
Statira.’  ‘Yes,  Sir,’  replied  the  Doctor;  ‘but,  in  my  family, 
it  has  never  been  decided  which  is  Roxana,  and  which  is  Statira.’ 

It  happened  that  I  was  in  Bolt  Court  on  the  day  when 
Mr.  Henderson2 *,  the  justly  celebrated  actor,  was  first  introduced 
to  Dr.  Johnson;  and  the  conversation  turning  on  dramatic 
subjects,  Henderson  asked  the  Doctor’s  opinion  of  Dido  and  its 
author.  ‘Sir,’  said  Johnson,  ‘I  never  did  the  man  an  injury; 
yet  he  would  read  his  tragedy  to  me  Y 


The  following  particulars  of  the  unfortunate  Samuel  Boyse 4 
I  had  from  Dr.  Johnson’s  own  mouth: — ‘  By  addicting  himself 
to  low  vices,  among  which  were  gluttony  and  extravagance, 
Boyse  rendered  himself  so  contemptible  and  wretched,  that  he 
frequently  was  without  the  least  subsistence  for  days  together. 
After  squandering  away  in  a  dirty  manner  any  money  which 
he  acquired,  he  has  been  known  to  pawn  all  his  apparel.’ 


1  Mrs.  Williams  and  Mrs.  Des- 
moulines.  He  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale 
on  Nov.  14,  1778  : — ‘Williams  hates 
everybody.  Levett  hates  Desmou- 
lines,  and  does  not  love  Williams. 
Desmoulines  hates  them  both.  Poll 
[Miss  Carmichael]  loves  none  of 
them.’  Life ,  iii.  368  ;  Letters ,  ii.  77. 

2  Ante ,  ii.  318  ;  Zz/q  iv.  244. 

Southey,  when  he  was  engaged  on 

Cowper’s  Life ,  wrote: — ‘Henderson 
gave  such  a  lift  to  Cowper  by  reciting 
John  Gilpin,  that  a  page  or  two  to 
his  honour  might  with  great  pro¬ 
priety  be  introduced.’  Southey’s 
Life  and  Corres.,  vi.  275.  After  one  of 


these  recitations  ‘  a  person  who  wrig¬ 
gled  up  to  him  said,  “  Pray,  who  did 
teach  you  to  read,  Mr.  Henderson  ?” 
“  My  mother,  Sir,”  was  his  reply.’ 
Southey’s  Cowper ,  ii.  83. 

3  Johnson  wrote  to  Dr.  Taylor  on 
May  3,  1777: — ‘Mr.  Lucas  has  just 
been  with  me.  He  has  compelled  me 
to  read  his  tragedy,  which  is  but 
a  poor  performance.’  Letters ,  ii.  9. 
In  a  note  I  suggest  that  he  may  be 
the  author  mentioned  above ;  but  in 
this  I  was  mistaken,  for  it  was  Joseph 
Reed. 

4  Life ,  iv.  407,  n.  4,  442 ;  ante,  i. 
228. 


Dr. 


412 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


Dr.  Johnson  once  collected  a  sum  of  money  to  redeem  his 
clothes,  which  in  two  days  after  were  pawned  again.  ‘This/ 
said  the  Doctor,  ‘  was  when  my  acquaintances  were  few,  and 
most  of  them  as  poor  as  myself.  The  money  was  collected 
by  shillings.’ 

On  the  morning  of  Dec.  7,  1784,  only  six  days  before  his 
death,  Dr.  Johnson  requested  to  see  the  editor  of  these  anecdotes1, 
from  whom  he  had  borrowed  some  of  the  early  volumes  of  the 
Gentleman' s  Magazine ,  with  a  professed  intention  to  point  out 
the  pieces  which  he  had  written  in  that  collection.  The  books 
lay  on  the  table,  with  many  leaves  doubled  down,  particularly 
those  which  contained  his  share  in  the  Parliamentary  Debates  ; 
and  such  was  the  goodness  of  Johnson’s  heart,  that  he  solemnly 
declared,  that  ‘  the  only  part  of  his  writings  which  then  gave 
him  any  compunction,  was  his  account  of  the  debates  in  the 
Magazine ;  but  that  at  the  time  he  wrote  them  he  did  not  think 
he  was  imposing  on  the  world  2 3.  The  mode,’  he  said,  ‘  was  to  fix 
upon  a  speaker’s  name,  then  to  conjure  up  an  answer.  He  wrote 
these  debates  with  more  velocity  than  any  other  of  his  productions ; 
often  three  columns  of  the  magazine  within  the  hour.  He  once 
wrote  ten  pages  in  one  day.’ 

Dr.  Johnson  said  to  me,  ‘I  may  possibly  live,  or  rather  breathe, 
three  days,  or  perhaps  three  weeks ;  but  I  find  myself  daily  and 
gradually  worse.’  . . .  Before  I  quitted  him,  he  asked,  whether  any 
of  the  family  of  Faden,-  the  printer,  were  living.  Being  told  that 
the  geographer  near  Charing  Cross  was  Faden’s  son,  he  said, 
after  a  short  pause,  ‘  I  borrowed  a  guinea  of  his  father  near  thirty 
years  ago ;  be  so  good  as  to  take  this,  and  pay  it  for  me  V 

During  the  whole  time  of  my  intimacy  with  him,  he  rarely 
permitted  me  to  depart  without  some  sententious  advice.  At 
the  latest  of  these  affecting  interviews, . . .  his  words  at  parting 
were,  ‘  Take  care  of  your  eternal  salvation.  Remember  to 

1  Life ,  iv.  407 ;  a?ite ,  i.  446.  in  which  the  Idler  was  published,  so 

2  Ante ,  ii.  342.  that  he  could  have  stopped  the  guinea 

3  Faden  for  a  few  weeks  had  had  out  of  the  money  due  to  Johnson, 
a  share  in  the  Universal  Chronicle  Life ,  i.  330,  n.  3  ;  ante ,  i.  447. 

observe 


By  the  Rev .  Mr.  Parker. 


413 


observe  the  Sabbath.  Let  it  never  be  a  day  of  business,  nor 
wholly  a  day  of  dissipation  V  He  concluded  his  solemn  farewell 
with,  c  Let  my  words  have  their  due  weight.  They  are  the  words 
of  a  dying  man.’  I  never  saw  him  more.  In  the  last  five  or  six 
days  of  his  life  but  few  even  of  his  most  intimate  friends  were 
admitted.  Every  hour  that  could  be  abstracted  from  his  bodily 
pains  and  infirmities,  was  spent  in  prayer  and  the  warmest 
ejaculations ;  and  in  that  pious,  praiseworthy,  and  exemplary 
manner,  he  closed  a  life  begun,  continued,  and  ended  in  virtue 1  2. 


BY  THE  REV.  MR.  PARKER. 


[‘  The  following  anecdotes  are  told  by  Mr.  Parker,  from  the 
relation  of  Mrs.  Aston  and  her  sister.’ — Croker’s  Boswell , 
ix.  249.] 

Dr.  Johnson’s  friendship  for  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Aston 3  commenced 
at  the  palace  in  Lichfield,  the  residence  of  Mr.  Walmesley 4:  with 
Mrs.  Gastrel  he  became  acquainted  in  London,  at  the  house  of 
her  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Hervey5.  During  the  Doctor’s  annual 
visits  to  his  daughter-in-law,  Lucy  Porter,  he  spent  much  of  his 
time  at  Stow  Hill6,  where  Mrs.  Gastrel  and  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
Aston  resided.  They  were  the  daughters  of  Sir  Thomas  Aston 7, 
of  Aston  Hall  in  Cheshire,  of  whom  it  is  said,  that  being  applied 
to  for  some  account  of  his  family,  to  illustrate  the  history  of 
Cheshire,  he  replied,  that  ‘the  title  and  estate  had  descended 
from  father  to  son  for  thirty  generations,  and  that  he  believed 
they  were  neither  much  richer  nor  much  poorer  than  they  were 
at  first.’ 


1  ‘He  said  he  would  not  have  Sun¬ 
day  kept  with  rigid  severity  and 
gloom,  but  with  a  gravity  and  sim¬ 

plicity  of  behaviour.’  Life,  ii.  72.  See 
a?ite,  i.  17,  301. 

3  *  In  all  our  works  begun,  con¬ 

tinued,  and  ended  in  thee.’  The 

Order  of  the  Holy  Communion ,  Book 

of  Common  Prayer. 

3  Life ,  i.  83  ;  Letters ,  i.  160  n. 


4  Life ,  i.  81.  He  lived  in  the 
Bishop’s  palace,  ( the  scene  of  many 
happy  days  in  Johnson’s  early  life.’ 
Ib.  ii.  467. 

5  Ante ,  i.  254  n. 

6  Life,  ii.  470  ;  Letters ,  i.  160. 

7  The  family  in  the  main  line  must 
be  extinct,  for  there  is  no  Aston  in 
the  list  of  Baronets. 


He 


414  Minor  A  necdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


He  used  to  say  of  Dr.  Hunter,  master  of  the  free  grammar 
school,  Lichfield,  that  he  never  taught  a  boy  in  his  life — he 
whipped  and  they  learned x.  Hunter  was  a  pompous  man, 
and  never  entered  the  school  without  his  gown  and  cassock, 
and  his  wig  full  dressed.  He  had  a  remarkably  stern  look,  and 
Dr.  Johnson  said,  he  could  tremble  at  the  sight  of  Miss  Seward2, 
she  was  so  like  her  grandfather. 

Mrs.  Gastrel  was  on  a  visit  at  Mr.  Hervey’s,  in  London,  at  the 
time  that  Johnson  was  writing  the  Rambler ;  the  printer’s  boy 
would  often  come  after  him  to  their  house,  and  wait  while  he  wrote 
off  a  paper  for  the  press  in  a  room  full  of  company 3.  A  great 
portion  of  the  Lives  of  the  Poets  was  written  at  Stow  Hill4:  he 
had  a  table  by  one  of  the  windows,  which  was  frequently 
surrounded  by  five  or  six  ladies  engaged  in  work  or  conversation. 
Mrs.  Gastrel  had  a  very  valuable  edition  of  Bailey’s  Dictionary 5, 
to  which  he  often  referred.  She  told  him  that  Miss  Seward  said 
that  he  had  made  poetry  of  no  value  by  his  criticism.  c  Why, 
my  dear  lady,’  replied  he,  £  if  silver  is  dirty,  it  is  not  the  less 
valuable  for  a  good  scouring 6.’ 

1  ‘  Mr.  Langton  one  day  asked  him 
how  he  had  acquired  so  accurate  a 
knowledge  of  Latin  ;  he  said,  ‘  My 
master  whipt  me  very  well.  Without 
that,  Sir,  I  should  have  done  nothing.’ 

Life ,  i.  45.  ‘Abating  his  brutality, 
he  was  a  very  good  master.’  Ib.  ii. 

146.  See  ante,  i.  159. 

2  The  epigram  in  Miss  Edge¬ 
worth’s  Absentee  (ch.  16) — 

‘Two  passions  alternately  govern 
her  fate, 

Her  business  is  love,  but  her 
pleasure  is  hate’ — 
was  made  by  R.  L.  Edgeworth  on 
Miss  Seward.  My  authority  for  this 
statement  is  his  grandson,  Professor 
Edgeworth. 

3  Life ,  i.  203;  iii.  42.  ‘The  ori¬ 
ginal  manuscripts  of  the  Rambler ,’ 
writes  Hawkins  (p.  382),  ‘have  passed 
through  my  hands,  and  I  am  war¬ 
ranted  to  say  that  he  never  blotted 

A  large 


out  a  line.’  See  Life,  i.  331,  for  his 
writing  an  Idler  in  half  an  hour. 

4  This  is  a  great  exaggeration. 
The  composition  of  the  Lives  spread 
over  not  much  less  than  four  years, 
from  Easter  1777  to  the  beginning  of 
1781.  In  1778  and  1780  he  did  not 
visit  Lichfield.  In  1779  and  1781 
he  spent  in  it  a  few  weeks. 

5  It  is  not  easy  to  understand  how 
any  edition  of  Bailey  could  be  ‘very 
valuable.’  See  ante,  ii.  95. 

6  See  Life,  iv.  331,  for  ‘a  high  com¬ 
pliment  which  Johnson  paid  to  Miss 
Seward  ’  on  her  Ode  on  Captain 
Cook.  R.  L.  Edgeworth  wrote  to 
Sir  Walter  Scott : — ‘  Now,  to  my 
certain  knowledge,  most  of  the  pas¬ 
sages  which  have  been  selected  in 
the  various  reviews  of  that  work  were 
written  by  Dr.  Darwin.’  Memoirs  of 
R.  L.  Edgeworth,  p.  399.  Never¬ 
theless  Miss  Seward  wrote  : — ‘  So 


By  the  Rev .  Mr.  Parker. 


4i5 


A  large  party  had  one  day  been  invited  to  meet  the  Doctor 
at  Stow-Hill :  the  dinner  waited  far  beyond  the  usual  hour,  and 
the  company  were  about  to  sit  down,  when  Johnson  appeared  at 
the  great  gate  ;  he  stood  for  some  time  in  deep  contemplation, 
and  at  length  began  to  climb  it,  and,  having  succeeded  in  clear¬ 
ing  it,  advanced  with  hasty  strides  towards  the  house.  On  his 
arrival  Mrs.  Gastrel  asked  him,  ‘  if  he  had  forgotten  that  there 
was  a  small  gate  for  foot  passengers  by  the  side  of  the  carriage 
entrance/  ‘  No,  my  dear  lady,  by  no  means/  replied  the  Doctor ; 
‘  but  I  had  a  mind  to  try  whether  I  could  climb  a  gate  now  as 
I  used  to  do  when  I  was  a  lad/ 

One  day  Mrs.  Gastrel  set  a  little  girl  to  repeat  to  him  Cato’s 
soliloquy,  which  she  went  through  very  correctly.  The  Doctor, 
after  a  pause,  asked  the  child,  ‘  What  was  to  bring  Cato  to  an 
end?’  She  said,  it  was  a  knife.  ‘No,  my  dear,  it  was  not  so/ 
‘  My  aunt  Polly  said  it  was  a  knife/  ‘  Why,  aunt  Polly’s  knife 
may  do ,  but  it  was  a  dagger ,  my  dear1/  He  then  asked  her  the 
meaning  of ‘bane  and  antidote2/  which  she  was  unable  to  give. 
Mrs.  Gastrel  said,  ‘  You  cannot  expect  so  young  a  child  to  know 
the  meaning  of  such  words/  He  then  said,  ‘  My  dear,  how  many 
pence  are  there  in  sixpence  ?'  ‘I  cannot  tell,  Sir,’  was  the  half- 
terrified  reply.  On  this,  addressing  himself  to  Mrs.  Gastrel,  he 
said,  ‘  Now,  my  dear  lady,  can  any  thing  be  more  ridiculous  than 
to  teach  a  child  Cato’s  soliloquy,  who  does  not  know  how  many 
pence  there  are  in  sixpence?’ 

The  ladies  at  Stow-Hill  would  occasionally  rebuke  Dr.  Johnson 
for  the  indiscriminate  exercise  of  his  charity  to  all  who  applied 


little  value  did  the  Society  which 
struck  a  medal  in  honour  of  Captain 
Cook  set  upon  my  poem,  that,  while 
they  avowedly  presented  one  to  every 
person  who  had  taken  public  interest 
in  his  fate  and  virtues,  they  took  no 
notice  of  me.’  Letters  of  Anna 
Seward ,  iii.  32.  It  is  to  be  hoped 
that  the  medal  went  to  Dr.  Darwin, 
whom  she  had  the  impudence  to 
accuse,  on  another  occasion,  of  ap¬ 


propriating  her  verses.  C.  Dar¬ 
win’s  Life  of  Erasmus  Darwin , 
p.  90. 

1  ‘The  soul  secured  in  her  exist¬ 

ence  smiles 

At  the  drawn  dagger,  and  defies 
its  point.’ 

2  ‘  Thus  am  I  doubly  armed :  my 

death  and  life, 

My  bane  and  antidote,  are  both 
before  me.’ 

for 


416 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


for  it.  4  There  was  that  woman/  said  one  of  them, 4  to  whom  you 
yesterday  gave  half-a-crown,  why  she  was  at  church  to-day  in 
long  sleeves  and  ribands/  4  Well,  my  dear/  replied  Johnson, 
‘and  if  it  gave  the  woman  pleasure,  why  should  she  not  wear 
them  1  ?’ 

He  had  long  promised  to  write  Mr.  Walmesley’s  epitaph,  and 
Mrs.  W.  waited  for  it,  in  order  to  erect  a  monument  to  her 
husband’s  memory2:  procrastination,  however,  one  of  the  Doctor’s 
few  failings,  prevented  its  being  finished  ;  he  was  engaged  upon 
it  in  his  last  illness,  and  when  the  physicians,  at  his  own  request, 
informed  him  of  his  danger,  he  pushed  the  papers  from  before 
him,  saying,  ‘It  was  too  late  to  write  the  epitaph  of  another, 
when  he  should  so  soon  want  one  himself.’ 


BY  WILLIAM  WELLER  PEPYS. 


[From  a  letter  from  Mr.  Pepys  to  Mrs.  Montagu  in  the 
Montagti  MSS.,  dated  August  4,  1781.  Croker’s  Boswell ,  x.  114. 
For  W.  W.  Pepys,  see  Life ,  iv.  82 ;  Letters ,  ii.  136.] 


I  met  Johnson  some  time  ago  at  Streatham,  and  such  a  day 
did  we  pass  in  disputation  upon  the  Life  of  our  dear  friend  Lord 
Lyttelton,  as  I  trust  it  will  never  be  my  fate  to  pass  again3. 
The  moment  the  cloth  was  removed  he  challenged  me  to  come 
out  (as  he  called  it),  and  say  what  I  had  to  object  to  his  Life  of 


Lord  Lyttelton.  This,  you  see, 

1  *  “  What  signifies,”  says  some 
one,  “giving  half-pence  to  common 
beggars  ?  they  only  lay  it  out  in  gin 
or  tobacco  ?”  “  And  why  should  they 
be  denied  such  sweeteners  of  their 
existence?”  says  Johnson.’  Ante,  i. 
204. 

4  He  is  an  old  man  (said  Burke  of 
a  beggar)  ;  and  if  gin  be  his  com¬ 
fort,  let  him  have  gin.’  Prior’s 
Burke ,  ed.  1872,  p.  242. 

2  She  outlived  Johnson  nearly  two 


was  a  call  which,  however  dis- 

years,  as  her  epitaph  in  Lichfield 
Cathedral  shows.  He  has  left  a 
monument  to  Walmesley’s  memory  in 
the  Lives  of  the  Poets.  Life ,  i.  81. 
He  wrote  epitaphs  on  his  father, 
mother  and  brother,  a  fortnight  be¬ 
fore  his  death.  Lb.  iv.  393.  4  He 

would  also,’  says  Hawkins  (ante,  ii. 
123), 4  have  written  in  Latin  verse  an 
epitaph  for  Mr.  Garrick,  but  found 
himself  unequal  to  the  task.’ 

3  Lb.  i.  244 ;  ii.  193. 

agreeable 


By  the  Rev.  Hastings  Robinson. 


4i7 


agreeable  to  myself  and  the  rest  of  the  company,  I  could  not  but 
obey,  and  so  to  it  we  went  for  three  or  four  hours  without 
ceasing.  He  once  observed,  that  it  was  the  duty  of  a  biographer 
to  state  all  the  failings  of  a  respectable  character  x.  .  .  .  He  took 
great  credit  for  not  having  mentioned  the  coarseness  of  Lord 
Lyttelton's  manners  2.  I  told  him,  that  if  he  would  insert  that  in 
the  next  edition,  I  would  excuse  him  all  the  rest3.  We  shook 
hands,  however,  at  parting  ;  which  put  me  much  in  mind  of  the 
parting  between  Jaques  and  Orlando — ‘God  be  with  you,  let 
us  meet  as  seldom  as  we  can.  Fare  you  well ;  I  hope  we 
shall  be  better  strangers  to  you  V  We  have  not  met  again 
till  last  Tuesday,  and  then  I  must  do  him  the  justice  to  say  that 
he  did  all  in  his  power  to  show  me  that  he  was  sorry  for  the 
former  attack.  But  what  hurts  me  all  this  while  is,  not  that 
Johnson  should  go  unpunished,  but  that  our  dear  and  respect¬ 
able  friend  should  ...  be  handed  down  to  succeeding  generations 
under  the  appellation  of  poor  Lyttelton 5. 


BY  THE  REV.  HASTINGS  ROBINSON. 


[Communicated  to  Mr.  Croker  by  the  Rev.  Hastings  Robinson, 
Rector  of  Great  Warley,  Essex.  Croker’s  Boswell ’  x.  126.] 

Miss  Seward,  her  father6  (the  editor  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher), 
the  Rev.  R.  G.  Robinson,  of  Lichfield,  and  Dr.  Johnson,  were 
passing  the  day  at  the  palace  at  Lichfield,  of  which  Mr.  Seward 
was  the  occupier.  The  conversation  turned  upon  Dr.  Dodd, 


1  Life ,  iii.  155  ;  ante ,  ii.  3. 

2  Ante ,  ii.  5. 

3  On  the  principle — 

‘  Quis  tulerit  Gracchos  de  sedi- 
tione  querentes.’ 

Juvenal,  Satires ,  ii.  24. 
Note  by  Croker. 

4  ‘Jaques.  God  be  wi’  you;  let’s 
meet  as  little  as  we  can. 

Orlando.  I  do  desire  we  may  be 

VOL.  II.  E  e 


better  strangers.’  As  You  Like  Lt , 
Act  iii.  sc.  2.  1.  273. 

5  For  Miss  Burney’s  description 
of  this  scene,  see  Life ,  iv.  65. 

6  The  Rev.  Thomas  Seward.  Life , 
ii.  467 ;  Letters ,  i.  10.  He  lived  in 
the  Bishop’s  Palace,  which,  according 
to  Johnson,  Miss  Porter  might  have 
had  in  1763  for  a  rent  of  ^20.  Lb.  i. 
100. 


who 


418 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


who  had  been  recently  executed  for  forgery  *.  It  proceeded  as 
follows.  Miss  Seward.  ‘I  think,  Dr.  Johnson,  you  applied 
to  see  Mr.  Jenkinson1 2  in  his  behalf/  Johnson.  ‘Why,  yes, 
Madam  ;  I  knew  it  was  a  man  having  no  interest,  writing  to 
a  man  who  had  no  interest 3 ;  but  I  thought  with  myself,  when 
Dr.  Dodd  comes  to  the  place  of  execution,  he  may  say,  “  Had 
Dr.  Johnson  written  in  my  behalf,  I  had  not  been  here,”  and 
( with  great  emphasis )  I  could  not  bear  the  thought !  ’  MISS 
Seward.  ‘But,  Dr.  Johnson,  would  you  have  pardoned  Dr. 
Dodd?’  Johnson.  ‘Madam,  had  I  been  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  legislature,  I  should  certainly  have  signed  his  death- 
warrant  ;  though  no  law,  either  human  or  divine,  forbids  our 
deprecating  punishment,  either  from  ourselves  or  others4.’ 

In  one  of  his  visits  to  Lichfield,  Dr.  Johnson  called  upon 
Mrs.  Gastrell  of  Stowe  5,  near  that  city.  She  opened  the  Prayer- 
book,  and  pointed  out  a  passage,  with  the  wish  that  he  would 
read  it.  He  began,  ‘We  have  heard  ( heerd )  with  our  ears’ — she 
stopped  him,  saying,  ‘  Thank  you,  Doctor !  you  have  read  all 
I  wish.  I  merely  wanted  to  know  whether  you  pronounced  that 
word  heerd  or  hard6/  ‘Madam,’  he  replied,  ‘“heard”  [heerd]  is 


1  On  June  27,  1777.  In  August 
Johnson  visited  Lichfield,  and  after¬ 
wards  Ashbourne,  where  he  gave 
Boswell  an  account  of  Dodd.  Life , 
iii.  139. 

2  Charles  Jenkinson,  first  Earl  of 
Liverpool.  Ib.  iii.  147;  ante ,  ii.  283. 

3  Jenkinson  had  interest,  for  he 
had  been  Lord  Bute’s  private  secre¬ 
tary,  and  was  one  of  the  leaders 
among  the  4  King’s  Friends.’ 

4  This  anecdote,  which  comes 
through  two  people,  must  be  received 
with  caution.  If  Johnson  used  these 

words  it  was  no  doubt  in  ‘  talking  for 
victory’  [ante,  i.  390).  In  the  Ram¬ 

bler •,  No.  1 1 4,  he  wrote: — ‘All  but 
murderers  have  at  their  last  hour 
the  common  sensations  of  mankind 
pleading  in  their  favour.  They  who 
would  rejoice  at  the  correction  of  a 


thief  are  yet  shocked  at  the  thought 
of  destroying  him.  His  crime  shrinks 
to  nothing  compared  with  his  misery.’ 
On  Dodd’s  execution  Johnson  wrote 
to  Boswell : — ‘  Surely  the  voice  of  the 
public,  when  it  calls  so  loudly,  and 
calls  only  for  mercy, ought  to  be  heard.’ 
Life ,  iii.  120.  See  also  ib.  iv.  207. 

5  lb.  ii.  470. 

6  She  must  have  said  ‘heerd  or 
herd.’  He  told  Boswell  that  his 
reason  for  pronouncing  it  heerd  was 
‘  that  if  heard  was  pronounced  herd, 
there  would  be  a  single  exception 
from  the  English  pronunciation  of 
the  syllable  ear,  and  he  thought  it 
better  not  to  have  that  exception.’ 
Ib.  iii.  197.  When  I  was  an  under¬ 
graduate  at  Pembroke  College  one 
of  the  tutors  always  pronounced  break 
breek . 


nonsense 


By  Mrs.  Rose . 


4T9 

nonsense ;  there  is  but  one  word  of  that  sound  (hard)  [herd]  in 
the  language  V 


BY  MRS.  ROSE. 


[‘  Communicated  by  Mrs.  Rose,  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Farr, 
of  Plymouth,  and  the  daughter-in-law  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  old 
friend,  Dr.  Rose  of  Chiswick.’  Croker’s  Boswell,  ix.  252.  For 
Dr.  Rose,  see  Letters ,  ii.  325.] 

Dr.  Mudge  used  to  relate,  as  a  proof  of  Dr.  Johnson’s 
quick  discernment  into  character : — When  he  was  on  a  visit  to 
Dr.  Mudge  at  Plymouth1 2 3,  the  inhabitants  of  the  Dock  (now 
Devonport)  were  very  desirous  of  their  town  being  supplied 
with  water,  to  effect  which  it  was  necessary  to  obtain  the  consent 
of  the  corporation  of  Plymouth  ;  this  was  obstinately  refused, 
the  Dock  being  considered  as  an  upstart.  And  a  rival,  Alderman 
Tolcher,  who  took  a  very  strong  part,  called  one  morning,  and 
immediately  opened  on  the  subject  to  Dr.  Johnson,  who  appeared 
to  give  great  attention,  and  when  the  alderman  had  ceased 
speaking,  replied,  ‘You  are  perfectly  right,  Sir ;  I  would  let  the 
rogues  die  of  thirst,  for  I  hate  a  Docker  from  my  heart.’  The 
old  man  went  away  quite  delighted,  and  told  all  his  acquaint¬ 
ances  how  completely  ‘the  great  Dr.  Johnson  was  on  his  side  of 
the  question  Y 

It  was  after  the  publication  of  the  Lives  of  the  Poets  that 
Dr.  Farr,  being  engaged  to  dine  with  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds, 
mentioned,  on  coming  in,  that,  in  his  way,  he  had  seen  a 


1  This  seems  a  contradiction  of 
what  he  said  to  Boswell. 

2  Life ,  i.  378. 

3  ‘Johnson,  affecting  to  entertain 
the  passions  of  the  place,  was  violent 
in  opposition  ;  and,  half  laughing  at 
himself  for  his  pretended  zeal  where 
he  had  no  concern,  exclaimed,  “  No, 


no !  I  am  against  the  Dockers ;  1 
am  a  Plymouth  man.  Rogues !  let 
them  die  of  thirst.  They  shall  not 
have  a  drop  !  ”  ’  lb.  i.  379.  John¬ 
son  at  this  time  had  not  received  a 
doctor’s  degree,  so  that  Mrs.  Rose’s 
report  is  not  quite  accurate. 


E  e  2 


caricature 


420 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


caricature,  which  he  thought  clever,  of  the  nine  muses  flogging 
Dr.  Johnson  round  Parnassus.  The  admirers  of  Gray  and  others, 
who  thought  their  favourites  hardly  treated  in  the  Lives ,  were 
laughing  at  Dr.  Farr’s  account  of  the  print,  when  Dr.  Johnson 
was  himself  announced.  Dr.  Farr  being  the  only  stranger,  Sir 
Joshua  introduced  him,  and,  to  Dr.  Farr’s  infinite  embarrassment, 
repeated  what  he  had  just  been  telling  them.  Johnson  was  not 
at  all  surly  on  the  occasion,  but  said,  turning  to  Dr.  Farr,  ‘  Sir, 
I  am  very  glad  to  hear  this.  I  hope  the  day  will  never  arrive 
when  I  shall  neither  be  the  object  of  calumny  or  ridicule,  for  then 
I  shall  be  neglected  and  forgotten  V 

It  was  near  the  close  of  his  life  that  two  young  ladies,  who 
were  warm  admirers  of  his  works,  but  had  never  seen  himself, 
went  to  Bolt  Court,  and,  asking  if  he  was  at  home,  were  shown 
up  stairs,  where  he  was  writing.  He  laid  down  his  pen  on  their 
entrance,  and,  as  they  stood  before  him,  one  of  the  females 
repeated  a  speech  of  some  length,  previously  prepared  for  the 
occasion.  It  was  an  enthusiastic  effusion,  which,  when  the 
speaker  had  finished,  she  panted  for  her  idol’s  reply.  What  was 
her  mortification  when  all  he  said  was,  ‘  Fiddle-de-dee,  my  dear.’ 

Much  pains  were  taken  by  Mr.  Hayley’s  friends  to  prevail  on 
Dr.  Johnson  to  read  The  Triumphs  of  Temper ,  when  it  was  in  its 
zenith1  2 ;  at  last  he  consented,  but  never  got  beyond  the  two  first 


1  Ante ,  i.  270 ;  ii.  207. 

2  It  was  published  in  1781.  Horace 
Walpole  wrote  on  March  3  of  that 
year  ( Letters ,  viii.  15): — ‘For  want 
of  subject  of  admiration  Sir  Joseph 
Yorke  is  called  by  the  newspapers 
a  great  man,  and  for  want  of  taste 
the  Monthly  Reviewers  call  Mr. 
Hayley  a  great  poet,  though  he  has 
no  more  ear  or  imagination  than  they 
have.’ 

Gibbon  wrote  on  July  3,  1782: — 
‘  I  hope  you  like  Mr.  Hayley’s  poem  ; 
he  rises  with  his  subject,  and,  since 
Pope’s  death,  I  am  satisfied  that 
England  has  not  seen  so  happy  a 


mixture  of  strong  sense  and  flowing 
numbers.’  Misc.  Works ,  ii.  259. 

Porson,  who  calls  him  ‘poetarum 
et  criticorum  pessimus  ’  (Porson’s 
Tracts ,  ed.  1815,  p.  307),  wrote  the 
following  lines  in  ridicule  of  the 
flattery  exchanged  between  Hayley 
and  Miss  Seward  : — 

‘  Miss  Seward  loquitur 
“Tuneful  poet,  Britain’s  glory, 
Mr.  Hayley,  that  is  you.” 

Hayley  respondet 
“  Ma’am,  you  carry  all  before  you, 
Trust  me,  Lichfield  Swan,  you 
do.” 


pages 


By  Mrs .  Rose. 


421 


pages,  of  which  he  uttered  a  few  words  of  contempt  that  I  have 
now  forgotten.  They  were,  however,  carried  to  the  author,  who 
revenged  himself  by  portraying  Johnson  as  Rumble  in  his  comedy 
of  The  Mausoleum 1 ;  and  subsequently  he  published,  without 
his  name,  a  Dialogue  in  the  Shades  between  Lord  Chesterfield 
and  Dr.  Johnson ,  more  distinguished  for  malignity  than  wit. 
Being  anonymous,  and  possessing  very  little  merit,  it  fell  still¬ 
born  from  the  press2. 

Dr.  Johnson  sent  his  Life  of  Lord  Lyttelton  in  MS.  to  Mrs. 
Montagu,  who  was  much  dissatisfied  with  it,  and  thought  her 
friend  every  way  underrated  ;  but  the  Doctor  made  no  alteration. 
When  he  subsequently  made  one  of  a  party  at  Mrs.  Montagu’s, 
he  addressed  his  hostess  two  or  three  times  after  dinner,  with 
a  view  to  engage  her  in  conversation :  receiving  only  cold  and 
brief  answers,  he  said,  in  a  low  voice,  to  General  Paoli,  who  sat 
next  him,  and  who  told  me  the  story,  ‘You  see,  Sir,  I  am  no 
longer  the  man  for  Mrs.  Montagu3.’ 


Miss  Seward. 

“  Ode,  didactic,  epic,  sonnet, 

Mr.  Hayley,  you’re  divine.” 

Hayley. 

“  Ma’am,  I’ll  take  my  oath  upon  it, 
You  yourself  are  all  the 
Nine.”’ 

Watson’s  Porson ,  ed.  1861,  p.  307. 

‘  Hayley,’  wrote  Southey,  ‘  has  been 
worried  as  schoolboys  worry  a  cat. 
I  am  treating  him  as  a  man  deserves 
to  be  treated  who  was  in  his  time, 
by  popular  election,  king  of  the  Eng¬ 
lish  poets,’  &c.  Southey’s  Corres. 
v.  179.  ‘I  was  born,’  he  adds, 
‘  during  his  reign,  and  owe  him  some¬ 
thing  for  having  first  made  me  ac¬ 
quainted  by  name  with  those  Spanish 
writers  of  whom  I  afterwards  knew 
much  more  than  he  did.’  Ib.  p.  210. 
‘Lord  Holland,’ says  Rogers  ( Table 
Talk ,  p.  57),  ‘  admires  greatly  the 
notes  to  his  various  poems.’ 

1  One  of  Plays  of  Three  Acts, 
written  for  a  Private  Theatre. 


Gejitlemari s  Magazine ,  1784,  p.  354. 

2  Reviewed  in  the  Gentleman' s 
Magazine ,  1787,  pp.  520,  612.  Miss 
Seward  wrote  to  Hayley  :  —  ‘  You 
must  learn  to  write  below  yourself, 
to  veil  those  rays  of  imagination,  wit 
and  knowledge  which  illuminate  your 
writings,  or  it  will  always  be  in 
vain  that  you  write  anonymously.’ 
Seward’s  Letters ,  &c.,  i.  302. 

3  Life ,  iv.  64,  73;  Letters ,  ii.  139, 
n.  1  ;  ante ,  ii.  193. 

Johnson  had  called  the  poet  ‘poor 
Lyttelton.’  Works ,  viii.  491  ;  Life, 
iv.  58,  n.  1.  Horace  Walpole  wrote 
on  March  3,  1781 : — ‘  Poor  Lyttelton 
were  the  words  of.  offence.  Mrs. 
Vesey  sounded  the  trumpet.  It  has 
not,  I  believe,  produced  any  alter¬ 
cation,  but  at  a  blue-stocking  meet¬ 
ing  held  by  Lady  Lucan,  Mrs.  Mon¬ 
tagu  and  Dr. Johnson  kept  at  different 
ends  of  the  chamber,  and  set  up  altar 
against  altar  there.  There  she  told 
me  as  a  mark  of  her  high  displeasure, 
that  she  would  never  ask  him  to 

Mrs. 


422  Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 

Mrs.  Piozzi  related  to  me,  that  when  Dr.  Johnson  one  day 
observed,  that  poets  in  general  preferred  some  one  couplet  they 
had  written  to  any  other,  she  replied,  that  she  did  not  suppose  he 
had  a  favourite  ;  he  told  her  she  was  mistaken — he  thought  his 
best  lines  were  : — 

‘  The  encumber’d  oar  scarce  leaves  the  hostile  coast, 

Through  purple  billows  and  a  floating  host1.’ 


FROM  STEBBING  SHAW. 


[Anecdotes  from  Shaw’s  History  of  Staffordshire ,  i.  346,  and 
the  Gentleman  s  Magazine ,  1785,  p.  495.] 

The  large  willow- tree  in  the  fore-ground  of  the  view  of  Stow 
Hill  has  been  generally  supposed  to  have  been  planted  by  Dr.  John¬ 
son  or  his  father,  but  as  the  Doctor  never  would  admit  the  fact, 
it  is  probable  that  the  vicinity  of  a  building  known  by  the  name 
of  the  Parchment  House  occasioned  such  supposition.  The 
business  of  parchment-making  was  carried  on  by  old  Mr.  John¬ 
son  2  at  that  place,  until  he  had  greatly  enriched  his  servants  and 
injured  his  own  fortune.  .  .  .  Dr.  Johnson  never  failed  to  visit 
this  tree  when  he  came  to  Lichfield..  During  his  visit  here  in 


dinner  again.  I  took  her  side  and 
fomented  the  quarrel.’  Letters,  viii. 
16. 

Wraxall  wrote  of  her  ( Memoirs , 
ed.  1815,  i.  140)  : — ‘ Impressed  prob¬ 
ably  from  the  suggestions  of  her  own 
knowledge  of  the  world,  with  a  deep 
conviction  of  that  great  truth  laid 
down  by  Moliere  which  no  Man  of 
Letters  ever  disputed,  that  Le  vrai 
A  mphytrion  est  celui  chez  qui  Von 
di)ie  [Le  veritable  Amphitryon  est 
l’Amphitryon  oil  Ton  dine],  Mrs.Mon- 
tagu  was  accustomed  to  open  her 
house  to  a  large  company  of  both 


sexes,  whom  she  frequently  enter¬ 
tained  at  dinner.  A  service  of  plate 
and  a  table  plentifully  covered  dis¬ 
posed  her  guests  to  admire  the 
splendour  of  her  Fortune  not  less 
than  the  lustre  of  her  Talents.’ 

1  ‘  The  dreaded  coast.’ 

Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  1.  239. 

See  Life,  i.  272,  for  his  favourite 
line  in  his  translation  of  Pope’s 
Messiah. 

2  In  connexion  with  this  manu¬ 
facture  he  was  threatened  with  a  pro¬ 
secution  by  the  Excise  Board.  Life , 
i.  36,  n.  5. 


1781 


Adam  Smith  on  Dr.  Johnson . 


423 


1781  he  desired  Dr.  Jones  to  give  him  an  account  of  it,  saying, 
it  was  by  far  the  largest  tree  of  the  kind  he  had  ever  seen  or 
heard  of,  and  therefore  wished  to  give  an  account  of  it  in  the 
Philosophical  Transactions r. 

From  the  attachment  shown  to  it  by  the  Doctor,  it  has  ever 
since  been  regarded  as  little  inferior  in  celebrity  to  Shakespeare’s 
Mulberry,  or  the  Boscobel  Oak,  and  specimens  of  its  wood  have 
been  worked  into  vases  and  other  ornaments.  He  once  took 
an  admeasurement  of  it  with  a  piece  of  string,  assisted  by  a  little 
boy,  to  whom  he  gave  half  a  crown  for  his  trouble.  The 
dimensions  of  the  willow  in  1781,  taken  by  Dr.  Trevor  Jones, 
and  communicated  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Johnson,  are  as  follows: — 
‘  The  trunk  rises  to  the  height  of  twelve  feet  eight  inches,  and 
is  then  divided  into  fifteen  large  ascending  branches,  which,  in 
very  numerous  and  crowded  subdivisions,  spread  at  the  top  in 
a  circular  form,  not  unlike  the  appearance  of  a  shady  oak, 
inclining  a  little  towards  the  east.  The  circumference  of  the 
trunk  at  the  bottom  is  sixteen  feet,  in  the  middle  eleven  feet, 
and  at  the  top,  immediately  below  the  branches,  thirteen  feet. 
The  entire  height  of  the  tree  is  forty-nine  feet,  overshadowing 
a  plain  not  far  short  of  four  thousand  feet1 2.’ 


ADAM  SMITH  ON  DR.  JOHNSON. 


[From  The  Bee ,  or  Literary  Weekly  Intelligencer.  By  James 
Anderson.  Edinburgh,  1791,  8vo.  vol.  iii.  p.  2.] 

Of  the  late  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  Dr.  Smith  had  a  very 
contemptuous  opinion 3.  ‘  I  have  seen  that  creature,’  said  he, 


1  Life ,  ii.  40. 

2  A  drawing  of  the  tree  is  given  in 
the  Ge7itleman's  Magazine  for  1785, 
p.  412. 

3  ‘  Dr.  Adam  Smith  once  observed 
to  me  (writes  Boswell)  that  “J°lmson 
knew  more  books  than  any  man 
alive.”’  Life,  i.  71.  In  his  review 


of  Johnson’s  Dictionary  he  speaks 
of  ‘  the  very  extraordinary  merit  ’  of 
the  author.  Ib.  i.  298,  n.  2.  The  Pre¬ 
face  to  his  Shakespeare  he  styled 
‘  the  most  manly  piece  of  criticism 
that  was  ever  published  in  any 
country.’  Ante ,  ii.  307. 

For  Johnson’s  ‘  unlucky  altercation 

‘  bolt 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


424 


‘  bolt  up  in  the  midst  of  a  mixed  company ;  and,  without  any 
previous  notice,  fall  upon  his  knees  behind  a  chair,  repeat  the 
Lord’s  Prayer  and  then  resume  his  seat  at  table.  He  has 
played  this  freak  over  and  over,  perhaps  five  or  six  times  in  the 
course  of  an  evening1.  It  is  not  hypocrisy,  but  madness. 
Though  an  honest  sort  of  man  himself,  he  is  always  patronising 
scoundrels  2.  Savage,  for  instance,  whom  he  so  loudly  praises, 
was  but  a  worthless  fellow 3 ;  his  pension  of  fifty  pounds  never 
lasted  him  longer  than  a  few  days4.’  [For  an  anecdote  which 
here  follows  about  Savage,  see  ante ,  i.  372  n.] 

He  was  no  admirer  of  the  Rambler  or  the  Idler ,  and  hinted, 
that  he  had  never  been  able  to  read  them  5.  He  was  averse  to 
the  contest  with  America6,  yet  he  spoke  highly  of  Johnson’s 
political  pamphlets.  But,  above  all,  he  was  charmed  with  that 
respecting  Falkland’s  Islands,  as  it  displayed,  in  such  forcible 
language,  the  madness  of  modern  wars7. 


with  him,5  see  Life ,  iii.331,  and  for  the 
imaginary  altercation,  see  ib.  v.  369, 
n.  5.  He  was  a  member  of  the 
Literary  Club.  ‘  Smith,  too,  is  now 
of  our  Club,’  wrote  Boswell.  ‘  It  has 
lost  its  select  merit.’  Ib.  ii.  430,  n.  1. 

1  There  is,  I  am  convinced,  great 
exaggeration  in  this,  not  probably  on 
Smith’s  part,  who  was  one  of  the 
most  truthful  of  men,  but  on  his 
reporter’s.  See  ib.  i.  483  ;  v.  307. 

2  ‘  He  was  (writes  Hawkins)  one 
of  the  most  quick-sighted  men  I  ever 
knew  in  discovering  the  good  and 
amiable  qualities  of  others.5  Ante , 
ii.  89. 

‘  It  has  always  been  found  that 
those  whose  extensive  knowledge 
makes  them  best  acquainted  with  the 
general  course  of  human  actions  are 
precisely  those  who  take  the  most 
favourable  view  of  them.  The  greatest 
observer  and  the  most  profound 
thinker  is  invariably  the  most  lenient 
judge.’  Buckle’s  Histoiy  of  Civiliza¬ 
tion  in  England ,  ed.  1872,  i.  221. 


3  Boswell  writes  of  Savage  as  ‘  a 
man  of  whom  it  is  difficult  to  speak 
impartially,  without  wondering  that 
he  was  for  some  time  the  intimate 
companion  of  Johnson.’  Life,  i.  161. 
Johnson  never  ‘loudly  praises’  Sa¬ 
vage,  but  exhibits  his  bad  as  fully  as 
his  good  qualities. 

4  This  Smith  learnt  from  John¬ 
son’s  Life  of  Savage,  Works,  viii. 
153.  If  improvidence  makes  a  worth¬ 
less  fellow,  then  Goldsmith  was 
among  the  most  worthless. 

5  There  were  those  who  could  not 
read  Adam  Smith’s  great  work.  Miss 
Berry,  who  died  in  1852,  remem¬ 
bered  ‘how  Charles  Fox  used  to 
wonder  that  people  could  make  such 
a  fuss  about  that  dullest  of  new 
books — Adam  Smith’s  Wealth  of 
Nations.’  H.  Martineau’s  Auto¬ 
biography,  i.  438. 

6  Hume’s  Letters  to  Strahan, 
pp.  292-3,  296,  299. 

7  Life,  ii.  134,  n.  3.  See  also  ante, 
ii.  16. 


DUGALD 


✓ 


Dugald  Stewart  on  Boswell* s  Anecdotes.  425 


DUGALD  STEWART  ON  BOSWELL'S  ANECDOTES. 

[From  Dugald  Stewart’s  Works ,  ed.  1854,  iv.  230.] 

*  I  have  often  experienced,’  Mr.  Boswell  gravely  remarks  in 
his  Tour  with  Dr.  Johnson,  ‘that  scenes  through  which  a  man 
has  passed,  improve  by  lying  in  the  memory ;  they  grow  mellow  V 
To  account  for  this  curious  mental  phenomenon,  which  he  plainly 
considered  as  somewhat  analogous  to  the  effect  of  time  in  im¬ 
proving  the  quality  of  wine,  he  has  offered  various  theories, 
without  however  once  touching  upon  the  real  cause — the  im¬ 
perceptible  influence  of  imagination  in  supplying  the  decaying 
impressions  of  memory.  The  fact,  as  he  has  stated  it,  was 
certainly  exemplified  in  his  own  case ;  for  his  stories,  which 
I  have  often  listened  to  with  delight,  seldom  failed  to  improve 
wonderfully  in  such  keeping  as  his  memory  afforded.  They  were 
much  more  amusing  than  even  his  printed  anecdotes  ;  not  only 
from  the  picturesque  style  of  his  conversational,  or  rather  his 
convivial  diction,  but  perhaps  still  more  from  the  humorous  and 
somewhat  whimsical  seriousness  of  his  face  and  manner.  As  for 
those  anecdotes  which  he  destined  for  the  public,  they  were 
deprived  of  any  chance  of  this  sort  of  improvement ,  by  the 
scrupulous  fidelity  with  which  (probably  from  a  secret  distrust 
of  the  accuracy  of  his  recollection)  he  was  accustomed  to  record 
every  conversation  which  he  thought  interesting,  a  few  hours 
after  it  took  place. 


BY  GILBERT  STUART. 

[The  following  anecdote  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  John 
Douglass  Brown,  jun.,  of  the  University  Club,  Philadelphia,  who 
copied  it  from  Stuart’s  History  of  the  Rise  of  ttie  Arts  of  Design 

1  Life ,  v.  333. 

in 


426 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


in  the  United  States ,  vol.  i.  p.  181.  This  work  is  not  in  the 
British  Museum.  Stuart  studied  under  West  in  1778.] 

Dr.  Johnson  called  one  morning  on  Mr.  West  [the  painter] 
to  converse  with  him  on  American  affairs.  After  some  time 
Mr.  West  said  that  he  had  a  young  American  [Gilbert  Stuart] 
living  with  him,  from  whom  he  might  derive  some  information, 
and  introduced  Stuart.  The  conversation  continued  (Stuart 
being  thus  invited  to  take  a  part  in  it,)  when  the  Doctor  observed 
to  Mr.  West  that  the  young  man  spoke  very  good  English  ;  and 
turning  to  Stuart  rudely  asked  him  where  he  had  learned  it. 
Stuart  very  promptly  replied,  ‘  Sir,  I  can  better  tell  you  where 
[  did  not  learn  it — it  was  not  from  your  dictionary.’  Johnson 
seemed  aware  of  his  own  abruptness,  and  was  not  offended. 


BY  THE  REV.  RICHARD  WARNER. 

[From  Warner’s  Tour  through  the  Northern  Counties,  published 
in  1802,  vol.  i.  p.  105.] 

During  the  last  visit  which  the  Doctor  made  to  Lichfield  x,  the 
friends  with  whom  he  was  staying  missed  him  one  morning 
at  the  breakfast-table.  On  inquiring  after  him  of  the  servants, 
they  understood  he  had  set  off  from  Lichfield  at  a  very  early 
hour,  without  mentioning  to  any  of  the  family  whither  he  was 
going.  The  day  passed  without  the  return  of  the  illustrious 
guest,  and  the  party  began  to  be  very  uneasy  on  his  account, 
when,  just  before  the  supper-hour,  the  door  opened,  and  the 
Doctor  stalked  into  the  room.  A  solemn  silence  of  a  few 
minutes  ensued,  nobody  daring  to  inquire  the  cause  of  his 
absence,  which  was  at  length  relieved  by  Johnson  addressing 

1  Johnson,  during  his  last  visit  to  Johnson’s  schoolmaster,  Hunter,  who 
Lichfield,  told  the  Rev.  Henry  White  married  Lucy  Porter,  sister  of  Henry 
that  what  is  here  recounted  had  Porter,  Mrs.  Johnson’s  first  husband, 
happened  a  few  years  earlier.  Life ,  Nichols,  Lit.  Hist.  vii.  362. 
iv.  372.  White  was  the  grandson  of 


the 


By  Mr.  Wickins. 


427 

the  lady  of  the  house  in  the  following  manner :  ‘  Madam,  I  beg 
your  pardon  for  the  abruptness  of  my  departure  from  your  house 
this  morning,  but  I  was  constrained  to  it  by  my  conscience. 
Fifty  years  ago,  Madam,  on  this  day,  I  committed  a  breach 
of  filial  piety,  which  has  ever  since  lain  heavy  on  my  mind,  and 
has  not  till  this  day  been  expiated.  My  father,  you  recollect, 
was  a  bookseller,  and  had  long  been  in  the  habit  of  attending 
Uttoxeter  market T,  and  opening  a  stall  for  the  sale  of  his  books 
during  that  day.  Confined  to  his  bed  by  indisposition,  he 
requested  me,  this  time  fifty  years  ago,  to  visit  the  market,  and 
attend  the  stall  in  his  place.  But,  Madam,  my  pride  prevented 
me  from  doing  my  duty,  and  I  gave  my  father  a  refusal.  To  do 
away  the  sin  of  this  disobedience,  I  this  day  went  in  a  postchaise 
to  Uttoxeter,  and  going  into  the  market  at  the  time  of  high 
business,  uncovered  my  head,  and  stood  with  it  bare  an  hour 
before  the  stall  which  my  father  had  formerly  used,  exposed  to 
the  sneers  of  the  standers-by  and  the  inclemency  of  the  weather ; 
a  penance  by  which  I  trust  I  have  propitiated  heaven  for  this 
only  instance,  I  believe,  of  contumacy  toward  my  father.’ 


BY  MR.  WICKINS. 

[‘  Dr.  Harwood  informs  me  that  Mr.  Wickins  was  a  respectable 
draper  in  Lichfield.  It  is  very  true  that  Dr.  Johnson  was 
accustomed  to  call  on  him  during  his  visits  to  his  native  town. 
The  garden  attached  to  his  house  was  ornamented  in  the  manner 
he  describes,  and  no  doubt  was  ever  entertained  of  the  exactness 
of  his  anecdotes.’  Croker’s  Boswell,  ix.  245.] 

Walking  one  day  with  him  in  my  garden  at  Lichfield,  we 
entered  a  small  meandering  shrubbery,  whose  ‘  vista  not 
lengthened  to  the  sight,’  gave  promise  of  a  larger  extent. 
I  observed,  that  he  might  perhaps  conceive  that  he  was  entering 

1  Life ,  i.  36,  n.  3.  Uttoxeter  is  so  that  not  much  trust  can  be 
about  eighteen  miles  from  Lichfield.  put  in  this  full  report  of  Johnson’s 
Warner  visited  Lichfield  in  1801,  words. 


an 


428 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


an  extensive  labyrinth,  but  that  it  would  prove  a  deception, 
though  I  hoped  not  an  unpardonable  one.  ‘  Sir,’  said  he,  ‘  don’t 
tell  me  of  deception ;  a  lie,  Sir,  is  a  lie,  whether  it  be  a  lie  to  the 
eye  or  a  lie  to  the  ear.’ 

Passing  on  we  came  to  an  urn  which  I  had  erected  to  the 
memory  of  a  deceased  friend.  I  asked  him  how  he  liked  that 
urn — it  was  of  the  true  Tuscan  order.  ‘Sir,’  said  he,  ‘I  hate 
urns1 ;  they  are  nothing,  they  mean  nothing,  convey  no  ideas  but 
ideas  of  horror — would  they  were  beaten  to  pieces  to  pave  our 
streets !’ 

We  then  came  to  a  cold  bath.  I  expatiated  upon  its  salubrity. 
‘Sir,’  said  he,  ‘how  do  you  do?’  ‘Very  well,  I  thank  you, 
Doctor.’  ‘  Then,  Sir,  let  well  enough  alone,  and  be  content. 
I  hate  immersion2 * *.’  Truly,  as  Falstaff  says,  the  Doctor  ‘would 
have  a  sort  of  alacrity  at  sinking  V 

Upon  the  margin  stood  the  Venus  de’  Medicis  — 

‘  So  stands  the  statue  that  enchants  the  world  V 
‘  Throw  her,’  said  he,  ‘  into  the  pond  to  hide  her  nakedness,  and 
to  cool  her  lasciviousness.’ 

He  then,  with  some  difficulty,  squeezed  himself  into  a  root- 
house,  when  his  eye  caught  the  following  lines  from  Parnell : — 

‘  Go  search  among  your  idle  dreams, 

Your  busy,  or  your  vain  extremes, 

And  find  a  life  of  equal  bliss, 

Or  own  the  next  began  in  this5.’ 

The  Doctor,  however,  not  possessing  any  silvan  ideas,  seemed 
not  to  admit  that  heaven  could  be  an  Arcadia. 


1  He  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale  : — 

‘Mr. - ’s  erection  of  an  urn  looks 

like  an  intention  to  bury  me  alive.’ 
Letters ,  ii.  33. 

2  Johnson  in  his  review  of  Lucas’s 
Essay  on  Waters  says: — ‘This  in¬ 
stance  does  not  prove  that  the  cold 
bath  produces  health,  but  only  that 

it  will  not  always  destroy  it.  He  is 

well  with  the  bath,  he  would  have 

been  well  without  it.’  Life ,  i.  91, 


n .  1.  Johnson  swam  at  Oxford 
and  at  Brighton.  Ib.  i.  348 ;  ante , 
i.  224. 

3  ‘  You  may  know  by  my  size  that 
I  have  a  kind  of  alacrity  in  sinking.’ 
The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor ,  Act 
iii.  sc.  5,  1.  12. 

4  Thomson,  Summer ,  1.  1346. 

5  ‘  Or  own  the  next  begun  in  this.’ 
A  Hym?i  to  Contentment.  Parnell, 
Aldine  Poets,  p.  99. 


I  then 


By  Mr.  Wickins. 


429 


I  then  observed  him  with  Herculean  strength  tugging  at  a  nail 
which  he  was  endeavouring  to  extract  from  the  bark  of  a  plum 
tree;  and  having  accomplished  it,  he  exclaimed,  ‘There,  Sir, 
I  have  done  some  good  to-day ;  the  tree  might  have  festered. 
I  make  a  rule,  Sir,  to  do  some  good  every  day  of  my  life.’ 

Returning  through  the  house,  he  stepped  into  a  small  study 
or  book-room.  The  first  book  he  laid  his  hands  upon  was 
Harwood’s  Liberal  Translation  of  the  New  Testament L  The 
passage  which  first  caught  his  eye  was  from  that  sublime 
apostrophe  in  St.  John,  upon  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  ‘Jesus 
wept;’  which  Harwood  had  conceitedly  rendered  ‘and  Jesus, 
the  Saviour  of  the  world,  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears.’  He 
contemptuously  threw  the  book  aside,  exclaiming,  ‘  Puppy !  ’ 
I  then  showed  him  Sterne’s  Sermons  2.  ‘  Sir,’  said  he,  ‘  do  you 

ever  read  any  others?’  ‘Yes,  Doctor;  I  read  Sherlock,  Tillot- 
son,  Beveridge,  and  others.’  £  Ay,  Sir,  there  you  drink  the  cup 
of  salvation  to  the  bottom  ;  here  you  have  merely  the  froth  from 
the  surface.’ 


Within  this  room  stood  the  Shakspearean  mulberry  vase3, 
a  pedestal  given  by  me  to  Mr.  Garrick,  and  which  was  recently 
sold,  with  Mr.  Garrick’s  gems,  at  Mrs.  Garrick’s  sale  at  Hampton. 
The  Doctor  read  the  inscription  : — 


‘ Sacred  to  Shakspeare, 
And  in  honour  of 
David  Garrick,  Esq. 
The  Ornament — the  Reformer 
Of  the  British  Stage/ 


V 


1  By  Dr.  Edward  Harwood.  Bos¬ 
well  describes  it  as  ‘a  fantastical 
translation  of  the  New  Testament  in 
modern  phrase,  and  with  a  Socinian 
twist/  Life ,  iii.  39.  ‘  I  have  written,’ 
Harwood  boasted,  ‘more  books  than 
any  one  person  now  living,  except 
Dr.  Priestley/  Nichols,  Lit.  Aiiec. 
ix.  580. 

*  See  L7fe,  iv.  109,  n.  1,  where 
Johnson,  owning  that  he  had  read 


Sterne’s  Sermons ,  said  :  —  ‘I  did 
read  them,  but  it  was  in  a  stage¬ 
coach  ;  I  should  not  have  even 
deigned  to  look  at  them  had  I  been 
at  large/ 

3  Johnson  often  visited  at  Lich¬ 
field  Mrs.  Gastrel,  the  wife  of  ‘  the 
clergyman  who,  with  Gothick  bar¬ 
barity,  cut  down  Shakespeare’s  mul¬ 
berry-tree/  lb .  ii.  470. 


‘Ay 


43° 


Minor  Anecdotes  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


‘  Ay,  Sir  ;  Davy,  Davy  loves  flattery ;  but  here,  indeed,  you 
have  flattered  him  as  he  deserves,  paying  a  just  tribute  to  his 
merit  V 


OF  STYAN  THIRLBY  BY  DR.  JOHNSON. 


[From  a  copy  of  the  original  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  R.  B. 
Adam. 

These  anecdotes  were  sent  by  Johnson  to  John  Nichols,  who 
used  them  in  a  brief  account  of  Thirlby.  Life ,  iv.  161,  n.  4; 
Letters ,  ii.  276.] 


What  I  can  tell  of  Thirlby,  I  had  from  those  who  knew  him. 
I  never  saw  him  myself. 


1.  This  was  an  exercise  written  by  him,  at  the  school  of  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Kilby  of  Leicester,  who  preserved  it,  and  by  whom  his 
proficiency  was  praised  as  very  quick.  He  went  through  my 
school ,  said  Mr.  Kilby,  in  three  years ,  and  his  self-conceit  was 
censured  as  very  offensive.  He  thought  he  knew  more  than  all 
the  school.  Perhaps ,  said  a  gentlewoman  to  whom  this  was  told, 
he  thought  rightly. 

2.  After  Thirlby ’s  publication  of  Justin,  Dr.  Ashton,  perhaps 
to  show  him  that  he  had  not  done  all  which  might  have  been 
done,  published  in  one  of  the  foreign  journals  some  emendations 
of  faulty  passages,  which  when  Thirlby  saw  he  said  slightly,  that 
any  man  who  would ,  might  have  made  them ,  and  a  hundred  more. 


3.  While  he  was  a  nominal  Physician,  he  lived  some  time  with 
the  Duke  of  Chandos  as  Librarian,  and  is  reported  to  have 
affected  a  perverse  and  insolent  independence,  so  as  capriciously 
to  refuse  his  company  when  it  was  desired.  It  may  be  supposed 
they  were  soon  weary  of  each  other. 


1  ‘Here  is  a  man  (said  Johnson) 
who  has  advanced  the  dignity  of  his 
profession.  Garrick  has  made  a 
player  a  higher  character.’  Life,  iii. 
263  ;  ante ,  ii.  241. 

Of  Hannah  More’s  flattery  of  Gar¬ 


rick  Johnson  said,  ‘  She  is  rewarded 
for  it  by  Garrick.’  Life ,  iii.  293.  Mrs. 
Montagu  flattered  him  in  her  foolish 
Essay  on  Shakespeare  ( ib .  v.  245), 
and  he  in  turn  praised  it.  Ib.  ii. 


Of  Sty  an  Thirlby  by  Dr.  Johnson . 


43 1 


4.  He  had  originally  contributed  some  notes  to  Theobald’s 
Shakespeare ,  and  afterwards  talked  of  an  edition  of  his  own. 
But  he  went  no  further  than  to  write  some  abusive  remarks  on 
the  margin  of  Warburton’s  Shakespeare  with  a  very  few  attempts 
at  emendation,  and  those  perhaps  all  in  the  first  volume.  In  the 
other  volumes  he  has  only  with  great  diligence  counted  the 
lines  in  every  page.  When  this  was  told  Dr.  Jortin,  I  have 
known  him ,  said  he,  amuse  himself  with  still  slighter  employment , 
he  would  write  dozvn  all  the  proper  names  that  he  coidd  call  into 
his  memory.  His  mind  seems  to  have  been  tumultuous  and 
desultory,  and  he  was  glad  to  catch  any  employment  that 
might  produce  attention  without  anxiety.  Such  employment, 
as  Dr.  Battie 1  has  observed,  is  necessary  for  madmen. 

N.  B.  In  his  cups  he  was  jealous  and  quarrelsome.  One  of 
his  pupils  having  been  invited  by  him  to  supper,  happened,  as 
he  was  going  away,  to  stumble  at  a  Pile  of  Justin2  which  lay 
on  the  floor  in  quires ;  Thirlby  told  him  that  he  kicked  down  the 
books  in  Contempt  of  the  Editor,  upon  which  the  Pupil  said,  it 
is  now  time  to  go  away. 

N.B.  One  of  his  colloquial  topicks  was  :  That  Nature  ap¬ 
parently  intended  a  kind  of  parity  among  her  sons.  Sometimes, 
said  he,  she  deviates  a  little  from  her  general  purpose,  and  sends 
into  the  world  a  man  of  powers  superior  to  the  rest,  of  quicker 
intuition,  and  wider  comprehension, — this  man  has  all  other  men 
for  his  enemies,  and  would  not  be  suffered  to  live  his  natural  time, 
but  that  his  excellences  are  ballanced  by  his  failings.  He  that 
by  intellectual  exaltation  thus  towers  above  his  contemporaries, 
is  drunken,  or  lazy,  or  capricious,  or  by  some  defect  ,  or  other  is 
hindered  from  exerting  his  sovereignty  of  mind  ;  he  is  thus  kept 
upon  the  level,  and  thus  preserved  from  the  destruction  which 
would  be  the  natural  consequence  of  universal  hatred. 

This  is  what  I  can  remember. 

1  Dr.  William  Battie  published  in  2  Thirlby  published  in  1723  an 
1757  A  Treatise  on  Madness.  Gentle-  edition  of  Justin  Martyr  in  folio. 
mads  Magazine ,  1757,  p.  605.  Ib.  1784,  p.  260. 


LETTERS  OF  DR.  JOHNSON 


F  f 


VOL.  IT. 


LETTERS  OF  DR.  JOHNSON 


J 

[The  following  letters  have  been  brought  to  my  notice  since 
the  publication  of  my  Letters  of  Samuel  Johnson .  Most  of  them, 
I  believe,  are  now  printed  for  the  first  time.] 

To  [Samuel  Richardson1]. 

Dear  Sir,  0753-] 

I  have  been  waiting  on  you  every  day  and  have  not  done  it. 
I  hear  you  take  subscriptions  for  your  two  subsequent  volumes. 


1  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Messrs.  J.  Pearson  &  Co., 
5  Pall  Mall  Place,  London. 

That  this  letter  was  written  to 
Richardson,  and  in  the  latter  half  of 
1753,  I  infer  from  the  following  con¬ 
siderations  : — 

In  the  Gentleman' s  Magazine  for 
1753,  p.  543,  in  the  list  of  books  pub¬ 
lished  in  November  is  ‘  The  History 
of  Sir  Charles  Grandiso?i,  4  vols.  in 
8 vo,  boards,  iys. ;  i2mo,  ioj.  6 dl 
Vol.  v.  8vo  and  vols.  v.  and  vi.  i2mo 
are  in  the  list  for  December,  p. 
593.  Vol.  vi.  8vo  and  vol.  vii.  i2mo 
are  in  the  list  for  March,  1754,  p.  144. 
The  two  editions  were  brought  out 
simultaneously.  In  my  copy  of  the 
octavo  edition  ‘  second  edition  ’  is 
added  to  the  title-page  of  vol.  vi ; 
in  the  copy  in  the  British  Museum 
it  appears  also  in  vol.  i.  The  book 

F 


seems  to  have  been  published  earlier 
than  November.  Mrs.  Carter  wrote 
on  Sept.  21  : — ‘  Mr.  Richardson  has 
been  so  good  as  to  send  me  four 
volumes  of  his  most  charming  work.’ 
Carter  and  Talbot  Letters ,  ii.  141. 
It  is  not  improbable,  however,  that 
he  sent  her  a  copy  before  publication. 

The  ‘  two  subsequent  volumes  ’ 
mentioned  by  J ohnson  were,  no  doubt, 
the  concluding  volumes  oiSir  Charles 
Grandison.  His  next  letter  shows, 
however,  that  it  was  the  edition  in 
seven  volumes  which  he  had  received. 
The  last  three  volumes  of  the  edition 
in  i2mo  contain  the  same  matter  as 
the  last  two  volumes  of  the  edition 
in  8vo. 

Lord  Corke,  who  ‘left  his  name/ 
is  mentioned  in  the  next  letter  as 
having  seen  Johnson  or  communi¬ 
cated  with  him. 

'2,  I  beg 


436 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


I  beg  to  put  my  name  amongst  your  other  friends.  If  you  favour 
me  with  a  few  receipts,  I  will  push  them. 

My  Lord  Corke  did  me  the  honour  to  leave  his  name.  I  went 
to  Mr.  Andrew  Millar1  to  enquire  where  he  resides,  but  could 
not  learn.  I  am  impatient  to  know. 

I  am,  Sir, 

Your  most  humble  servant, 

Thursday  night.  SAM:  JOHNSON. 

Endorsed  from  Sam:  Johnson. 


To  [Samuel  Richardson2]. 

I  am  desired  by  Miss  Williams  who  has  waited  several  times 
upon  you  without  finding  you  at  home,  and  has  been  hindered  by 
an  ilness  of  some  weeks  from  repeating  her  visits,  to  return  you 
her  humble  thanks  for  your  present.  She  is  likewise  desirous  to 
lay  before  you  the  inclosed  plan  which  she  has  meditated  a  long 
time,  and  thinks  herself  able  to  execute  by  the  help  of  an 
Amanuensis,  having  long  since  collected  a  great  number  of 
volumes  on  these  subjects,  which  indeed  she  appears  to  me  to 
understand  better  than  any  person  that  I  have  ever  known.  She 
will  however  want  a  few  of  the  late  books.  She  begs  that  if  you 
think  her  dictionary  likely  to  shift  for  itself  in  this  age  of 
dictionaries  you  will  be  pleased  to  encourage  her  by  taking  some 
share  of  the  copy,  and  using  your  interest  with  others  to  take  the 
rest,  or  put  her  in  any  way  of  making  the  undertaking  profitable 
to  her. 

I  am  extremely  obliged  by  the  seventh  volume.  You  have 
a  trick  of  laying  yourself  open  to  objections,  in  the  first  part  of 
your  work,  and  crushing  them  in  subsequent  parts.  A  great  deal 
that  I  had  to  say  before  I  read  the  conversation  in  the  latter 
part,  is  now  taken  from  me.  I  wish  however  that  Sir  Charles 
had  not  compromised  in  matters  of  religio7i 3. 


1  Millar  had  published  Lord 
Corke’s  Remarks  on  the  Life  of 
Swift. 

2  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 

sion  of  Messrs.  J.  Pearson  &  Co., 


5  Pall  Mall  Place,  London.  It  was 
lately  sold  by  auction  by  Messrs. 
Sotheby  &  Co.  for  £6  ioj-. 

3  Richardson  in  ‘a  concluding  note 
by  the  editor’  (ed.  1754,  vi.  300) 

I  must 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


437 


I  must  beg  leave  to  introduce  to  your  acquaintance  Mr.  Adams 
under  whom  I  had  the  honour  to  perform  exercises  at  Oxford  x, 
and  who  has  lately  recommended  himself  to  the  best  part  of 
Mankind  by  his  confutation  of  Hume  on  Miracles 2. 

My  Lord  Corke  is  desirous  to  see  Mr.  Falkner’s  letter  to  me. 
I  wish  you  would  find  it  him,  as  by  my  desire,  and  when  it  is 
returned,  take  care  to  keep  it  for  my  justification,  for  I  would 
not  have  shewn  it,  but  at  his  own  instigation 3. 


says  : — ‘  Many  there  are  who  look 
upon  his  offered  compromise  with 
the  Porretta  family,  in  allowing  the 
Daughters  of  the  proposed  marriage 
to  be  brought  up  by  the  mother, 
reserving  to  himself  the  Education 
of  the  Sons  only,  as  a  blot  in  the 
character.’  To  lessen  criticism 
Richardson  supplies  ‘  an  unlucky 
omission  ’  in  one  of  the  letters.  Sir 
Charles  Grandison ,  vi.  410. 

Mrs.  Barbauld,  in  her  Memoirs  of 
Richards 071  ( Clarissa ,  vol.  i.  Preface, 
p.  41),  says: — ‘The  author  valued 
himself  upon  his  management  of  this 
nice  negotiation  ;  and,  in  a  letter  to 
one  of  his  French  translators,  dex¬ 
terously  brings  it  forward  as  a  proof 
of  his  candour  and  liberality  towards 
the  Catholic  religion.’ 

1  This  is  no  contradiction  of  the 
statement  that  Adams  was  only  John¬ 
son’s  ‘  nominal  tutor.’  Life,  i.  79. 
The ‘exercises’ were  often  performed 
in  the  hall,  no  doubt  before  the 
Master  and  Fellows.  Ib.  i.  60. 

2  ‘Answering,  in  the  theologic  dic¬ 
tionary,  signifies  confuting.’  Wal¬ 
pole’s  Letters ,  vii.  158. 

‘Answers  (wrote  Hume)  by  Reve¬ 
rends  and  Right  Reverends  came  out 
two  or  three  in  a  year.’  Letters  of 
Hume  to  Stratum,  Preface,  p.  24. 

‘  Dr.  Adams  told  me  he  had  once 
dined  in  company  with  Hume  in 
London  ;  that  Hume  shook  hands 
with  him,  and  said,  “You  have 


treated  me  much  better  than  I  de¬ 
serve.”  ’  Life,  ii.  441. 

3  Ireland  was  first  brought  under 
the  Copyright  Act  by  the  41  Geo. 
Ill,  c.  107.  Letters  of  Hume  to 
StrahaTi ,  p.  176.  Gibbon  suffered 
from  ‘the  pirates  of  Dublin.’  Misc. 
Works ,  i.  223.  Boswell’s  Life  of 
Joh7ison  was  reprinted  in  Dublin  in 
1792  in  3  vols.  8 vo.  George  Faulkner, 
the  famous  Dublin  bookseller,  was 
by  agreement  with  Richardson  to 
print  and  publish  Sir  Charles 
Graiidison  before  it  was  published  in 
London.  Only  a  few  sheets  had  been 
sent  over,  when  Richardson  found 
out  that  some  booksellers  in  Dublin 
had  bribed  his  servants  to  steal  and 
send  them  copies  of  almost  the  whole 
work.  Faulkner  at  once  shared  in 
the  plunder.  ‘  He  also  wrote  letters 
to  several  persons  of  character  in 
London,  endeavouring  to  justify  him¬ 
self,  without  having  that  strict  regard 
to  veracity  in  them  which  becomes 
a  man  of  business.’  Richardson 
mentions  his  letter  to  Johnson  as 
‘  this  strange,  this  inconsistent,  this 
misrepresenting  Letter  of  yours  to 

Mr . ’  Sir  Charles  Grandiso?i , 

vi.  pp.  412-433;  Gentleman' s  Maga¬ 
zine,  1753,  p.  465.  Lord  Corke  was 
the  fifth  Earl,  often  mentioned  in 
Boswell  as  Lord  Orrery.  For  George 
F aulkner,  see  Life,  v.  44 ;  Letters, 
i.  13.  See  post ,  p.  442. 


I  cannot 


43^ 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


I  cannot  conclude  without  recommending  Miss  Williams’s  little 
business  to  you.  She  is  certainly  qualified  for  her  work,  as  much 
as  any  one  that  will  ever  undertake  it,  as  she  understands  chimistry 
and  many  other  arts  with  which  Ladies  are  seldom  acquainted, 
and  I  shall  endeavour  to  put  her  and  her  helpmate  into  method. 
I  can  truly  say  that  she  deserves  all  the  encouragement  that  can 
be  given  her ,for  a  being  more  pure  from  any  thing  vicious  I  have 
never  known.  j  am 

Sir, 

Your  most  obliged 
and 

most  humble  servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

Endorsed  Mr.  Johnson  and  Miss  W.’s  Plan. 

28  March,  1754. 


_  To  [Samuel  Richardson1]. 

Dear  Sir, 

If  you  have  any  part  of  the  universal  History 2  yet  unengaged, 
there  [is]  a  Gentleman  desirous  of  giving  his  assistance.  To 
recommend  authours  is  dangerous,  I  have  therefore  sent  you  his 
Book  [which]  I  think  sets  him  on  a  level  with  most  of  those  who 
are  at  present  employed.  I  do  not  know  him,  but  the  Gentleman 
to  whom  he  dedicates  informs  me  that  he  is  diligent  and  per¬ 
severing.  His  Patron  will  be  answerable  for  any  books  put 
into  his  hands,  and  perhaps  for  money  if  any  be  advanced, 
but  no  request  of  money  has  been  made  to  me.  [I  have  said 
nothing  to  Mr.  Millar3  for  who  should  judge  of  an  authour  but 
you?]  If  you  approve  him  you  will  therefore  please  to  introduce 
him  so  as  that  no  offence  be  given. 


1  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Messrs.  J.  Pearson  &  Co., 
5  Pall  Mall  Place,  London. 

The  letter  is  not  addressed,  but  it 
can  scarcely  be  doubted  that  it  was 
written  to  Richardson. 

2  For  a  list  of  the  writers  of  the 


Universal  History ,  see  Letters ,  ii. 
432  ;  ante ,  i.  445. 

3  Andrew  Millar,  the  bookseller, 
‘the  Maecenas  of  the  age,’  as  Johnson 
called  him.  Ante,  ii.  5.  The  brackets 
in  which  this  paragraph  is  enclosed 
are  in  the  original. 


I  am 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


439 


I  am  in  no  great  haste  for  an  Answer.  You  may  look  into  the 
book  at  leisure,  for  I  do  not  expect  that  you  should  catch  [at]  it 
with  the  eagerness  with  which  the  world  catches  at  yours x. 

I  am, 

Sir, 

Your  most  humble  servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

Feb.  3,  1755. 

Pray  favour  me  with  an  account  of  the  translations  of  Clarissa 
which  you  have,  I  have  a  desire  to  borrow  some  of  them1  2. 


To  [? George  Hay3,  Esq.,  D.C.L.]. 

Sir, 

I  should  not  have  easily  prevailed  upon  myself  to  trouble 
a  Person  in  your  high  station  with  a  request,  had  I  not  observed 
that  Men  have  commonly  benevolence  in  proportion  to  their 
capacities,  and  that  the  most  extensive  minds  are  most  open 
to  solicitation. 

I  had  a  Negro  Boy  named  Francis  Barber,  given  me  by 
a  Friend4  whom  I  much  respect,  and  treated  by  me  for  some 


1  Johnson,  writing  to  Richardson 
about  Clarissa ,  said : — ‘  Though  the 
story  is  long  every  letter  is  short.’ 
Letters,  i.  21. 

2  ‘Johnson,  when  he  carried  Mr. 
Langton  to  see  Richardson,  professed 
that  he  could  bring  him  out  into 
conversation,  and  used  this  allusive 
expression,  “  Sir,  I  can  make  him 
rear .”  But  he  failed  ;  for  in  that  in¬ 
terview  Richardson  said  little  else 
than  that  there  lay  in  the  room  a 
translation  of  his  Clarissa  into  Ger¬ 
man.’  Life ,  iv.  28. 

3  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mr.  R.  B.  Adam  of  Buffalo. 

Francis  Barber  had  run  away  from 
Johnson’s  service  three  years  earlier 
than  the  date  of  this  letter,  but  had  re¬ 
turned.  Life ,  i.  239,  n. ;  Letters ,  i.  66. 


On  his  second  flight  Johnson  sought 
Smollett’s  aid  in  procuring  his  dis¬ 
charge  from  the  navy  which  he  had 
entered.  Smollett  applied  to  Wilkes. 
‘  Mr.  Wilkes  (writes  Boswell),  who 
upon  all  occasions  has  acted,  as  a 
private  gentleman,  with  most  polite 
liberality,  applied  to  his  friend  Sir 
George  Hay,  then  one  of  the  Lords 
Commissioners  of  the  Admiralty ;  and 
Francis  Barber  was  discharged,  as 
he  has  told  me,  without  any  wish  of 
his  own.’  Life ,  i.  348. 

It  is  most  likely  that  it  was  to  Sir 
George  Hay,  at  that  time  Dr.  Hay, 
that  this  letter  was  written. 

4  Dr.  Bathurst.  ‘  Barber  was  born 
in  Jamaica,  and  was  brought  to 
England  in  1750  by  Colonel  Bathurst, 
father  of  Johnson’s  very  intimate 

years 


440 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


years  with  great  tenderness.  Being  disgusted  in  the  house  he 
ran  away  to  sea,  and  was  in  the  Summer  on  board  the  ship 
stationed  at  Yarmouth  to  protect  the  fishery. 

It  [would]  be  a  great  pleasure  and  some  convenience  to  me, 
if  the  Lords  of  the  Admiralty  would  be  pleased  to  discharge 
him,  which  as  he  is  no  seaman,  may  be  done  with  little  injury 
to  the  King’s  service. 

You  were  pleased,  Sir,  to  order  his  discharge  in  the  Spring 
at  the  request  of  Mr.  Wilkes,  but  I  left  London  about  that  time 
and  received  no  advantage  from  your  favour.  I  therefore  pre¬ 
sume  to  entreat  that  you  will  repeat  your  order,  and  inform  me 
how  to  cooperate  with  it  so  that  it  may  be  made  effectual  *. 

I  shall  take  the  liberty  of  waiting  at  the  Admiralty  next 
Tuesday  for  your  answer.  I  hope  my  request  is  not  such  as 
it  is  necessary  to  refuse,  and  what  it  is  not  necessary  to  refuse, 
I  doubt  not  but  your  humanity  will  dispose  you  to  grant,  even 
to  one  that  can  make  no  higher  pretensions  to  your  favour,  than, 

Sir, 

Your  most  obedient 
and 

Most  humble  Servant, 

Gray’s  Inn  2,  SAM:  JOHNSON. 

November  the  9th,  1759. 


Dear  Sir, 


To  the  Rev.  Thomas  Percy3. 


I  should  not  think  our  visit  an  event  so  important  as  to 
require  any  previous  Notification,  but  that  Mrs.  Williams  tells 
me,  such  was  your  desire4.  We  purpose  to  set  out  on  Monday 


friend,  Dr.  Bathurst.  The  Colonel 
by  his  will  left  him  his  freedom,  and 
Dr.  Bathurst  was  willing  that  he 
should  enter  into  Johnson’s  service.’ 
Life ,  i.  239 n. ;  ante ,  i.  391.  According 
to  Lord  Mansfield’s  decision  Barber 
had  become  free  the  moment  he 
landed  in  England,  but  it  was  not 
till  1772  that  this  decision  was  given. 
Life ,  iii.  87  n. 


1  According  to  Croker  it  was  not 
till  June  of  the  following  year  that  he 
was  discharged.  Ib.  i.  350  n. 

2  Letters ,  i.  88. 

3  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mr.  R.  B.  Adam,  of  Buffalo, 
New  York. 

4  Johnson  declined  an  invitation  to 
visit  Percy  in  September,  1761,  as  he 
wished  to  see  the  coronation.  Letters , 

morning 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson . 


44i 

morning  in  the  Berlin1  in  which  we  could  not  get  places  last 
week,  and  hope  to  have  the  honour  in  the  evening 2  of  telling  you 
and  Mrs.  Percy  that  we  are, 

Your  humble  Servants, 

T  ,  T  .  Sam.  Johnson. 

London,  June  23,  1764. 


0  To  Dr.  Percy.  rTT  , 

SIR,  [Undated.] 

I  have  sent  you  home  a  parcel  of  books,  and  do  not  know 
that  I  now  retain  any  except  Gongora3  and  Araucana4.  If  you 
can  spare  Amadis  please  to  return  it  to, 

Sir, 

Your  most  humble, 

To  the  Reverend  Dr.  Percy.  SAM  =  J0HNS0N  * 


■p.  A  r.  To  the  Rev.  Edward  Lye6. 

Dear  Sir, 

I  see  little  to  change  in  your  proposals,  only  for  writing 
demy  I  would  read  as  more  generally  intelligible  writing  paper , 


i.  91.  For  his  visit  in  1764,  see  Life, 
i.  486,  and  ante ,  ii.  p.  217. 

1  ‘  I  fixed  my  eye  upon  a  small 
carriage  Berlin  fashion,  which  seemed 
the  most  convenient  vehicle  at  a 
distance  in  the  world.5  Goldsmith’s 
Misc.  Works ,  ed.  1801,  iv.  225.  ‘An 
old-fashioned  four-wheeled  covered 
carriage  with  a  seat  behind  covered 
with  a  hood.5  New  Eng.  Diet. 

2  Easton  Mauduit,  Percy’s  Vicar¬ 
age,  is  in  Northamptonshire,  about 
58  miles  from  London.  Paterson’s 
Itinerary ,  1800,  i.  384. 

3  ‘  Luis  de  Gongora  y  Argote  (1561- 
1627).  A  Spanish  lyric  poet,  noted 
as  the  founder  of  a  highly  meta¬ 
physical  and  artificial  style  from  him 
named  “Gongorism,5’  and  also  called 
the  “  polished,”  “  polite,”  and  “  cul¬ 
tivated5’  style.’  The  Century  Cyclo¬ 
pedia  of  Names. 


4  *  Araucana.  A  heroic  poem  in 
37  Cantos,  by  the  Spanish  poet  Alonso 
de  Ercilla.5  Ib. 

5  ‘  Dr.  Percy  informs  me  that 
“  when  a  boy  he  (Johnson)  was  im¬ 
moderately  fond  of  reading  romances 
of  chivalry,  and  he  retained  his  fond¬ 
ness  for  them  through  life ;  so  that 
(adds  his  Lordship)  spending  part  of 
a  summer  at  my  parsonage-house  in 
the  country,  he  chose  for  his  regular 
reading  the  old  Spanish  romance  of 
Felix7narte  of  Hircania ,  in  folio, 
which  he  read  quite  through.”  *  Life, 
i.  48. 

6  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Messrs.  J.  Pearson  &  Co.  John¬ 
son  wrote  to  Boswell  on  March  9, 
1 7 66 : — ‘  Mr.  Lye  is  printing  his  Saxon 
and  Gothick  Dictionary;  all  The 
Club  subscribes.’  Life ,  ii.  17.  See 
Letters ,  i.  121. 


and 


442 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


and  I  would  stop  at  a  sufficient  number  of  Subscribers.  What  is 
added  being,  in  my  opinion,  rather  deficient  in  dignity. 

The  success  of  your  subscription  I  do  not  doubt,  and  wish  you 
were  closely  engaged  at  the  press.  Two  sheets  of  Saxon  letters 
will  not  be  sufficient,  there  ought  always  to  be  one  sheet  printing, 
another  in  your  hands  for  correction,  and  a  third  composing. 
There  ought  to  be  more,  but  this  is  the  least,  and  if  at  Oxford 
they  will  not  do  this,  you  must  not  print  at  Oxford  ;  for  your 
Edition  will  be  retarded  beyond  measure.  They  must  get  four 
sheets  of  letter  at  least,  which  will  cost  very  little,  there  being 
few  peculiar  characters. 

Stipulate  with  the  printer  to  give  you  a  certain  number  of 
sheets  weekly,  you  ought  not  to  have  less  than  three,  and  you 
will  not  easily  have  more. 

Miss  Williams  sends  her  best  compliments  to  you  and  to 
Mrs.  Calvert,  and  begs  that  you  will  return  her  thanks  to 
Mrs.  Percy  for  her  letter,  in  the  contents  of  which  she  takes 
great  interest. 

The  Hare  will  come  safe  if  it  be  directed  to, 

Sir, 

Your  most  humble  Servant, 

Johnson’s  Court,  Fleet-street,  SAM:  JOHNSON. 

Sept.  26,  1765. 

To  the  Reverend  Mr.  Lye, 

at  Yardley,  near  Castle  Ashby,  Northamptonshire. 


Sir, 


To  [William  Strahan?1]. 


I  will  tell  you  in  a  few  words,  what  is,  in  my  opinion,  the 
most  desirable  state  of  Copyright  or  literary  Property 2. 


1  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mr.  R.  B.  Adam  of  Buffalo. 

I  have  two  reasons  for  the  belief 
that  this  letter  was  written  to  W. 
Strahan.  In  the  first  place,  at  the 
time  when  it  was  sold  by  auction 
(July,  1886)  a  large  collection  of 
letters  written  to  Strahan  was  getting 
dispersed.  In  the  second  place,  in 
the  spring  of  the  year  in  which  John¬ 


son  gave  his  correspondent  his 
opinion  on  copyright  Strahan  con¬ 
sulted  Hume  and  Robertson  on  the 
same  question.  Their  answers,  with 
letters  of  other  authors,  were  used 
by  counsel  before  the  House  of 
Lords  on  May  13.  Letters  of  Hume 
to  Strahan ,  pp.  274,  278,  284. 

2  Hume  wrote  to  Strahan  : — ‘  I 
have  writ  you  an  ostensible  Letter 

The 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


443 


The  Authour  has  a  natural  and  peculiar  right  to  the  profits  of 
his  own  work  x. 

But  as  every  Man  who  claims  the  protection  of  Society,  must 


on  the  subject  of  literary  Property, 
which  contains  my  real  Sentiments, 
so  far  as  it  goes.  However,  I  shall 
tell  you  the  truth ;  I  do  not  foresee 
any  such  bad  Consequences  as  you 
mention  from  laying  the  Property 
open.  The  Italians  and  French  have 
more  pompous  Editions  of  their 
Classics  since  the  Expiration  of  the 
Privileges  than  any  we  have  of  ours : 
And  at  least  every  Bookseller  who 
prints  a  Book  will  endeavour  to 
make  it  as  compleat  and  correct  as 
he  can.5  Letters  of  Hume,  p.  274. 

The  following  is  an  abridgement  of 
my  notes  on  this  letter: — ‘  On  Feb. 
22,  1774,  a  decision  was  given  in  the 
House  of  Lords  on  the  question  of 
literary  property  or  copyright,  by 
which,  to  use  the  words  of  the 
Annual  Register  (XVII.  i.  95), “Near 
£ 200,000  worth  of  what  was  honestly 
purchased  at  public  sale,  and  which 
was  yesterday  thought  property,  is 
now  reduced  to  nothing.  The  English 
booksellers  have  now  no  other  security 
in  future  for  any  literary  purchases 
they  may  make  but  the  statute  of  the 
8th  of  Queen  Anne,  which  secures  to 
the  author’s  assigns  an  exclusive 
property  for  14  years,  to  revert  again 
to  the  author,  and  vest  in  him  for  14 
years  more.”  The  works  of  Shake¬ 
speare,  Milton,  Dryden,  Bunyan, 
Locke,  had  hitherto  been  copyright. 
Boswell,  under  date  of  July  20,  1763, 
tells  how  Donaldson,  an  Edinburgh 
bookseller,  ‘  had  for  some  years 
opened  a  shop  in  London,  and  sold 
his  cheap  editions  of  the  most  popular 
English  books,  in  defiance  of  the 
supposed  common-law  right  of  Lite¬ 
rary  Property.’  Life,  i.  437.  The 
booksellers  got  a  verdict  against  him 
in  1769  in  the  Court  of  King’s  Bench, 


but  the  judgement,  upon  an  appeal 
from  a  decree  of  the  Court  of  Chan¬ 
cery  founded  on  it,  was  reversed  by 
the  House  of  Lords  on  Feb.  22, 1774. 
A  copyright  Bill  in  protection  of  the 
booksellers  was  the  same  session 
carried  through  the  House  of  Com¬ 
mons,  but  it  was  lost  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  The  London  booksellers  pro¬ 
tected  themselves  by  an  ‘  honorary 
copyright,  which,’  wrote  Boswell  in 
1791, ( is  still  preserved  among  them 
by  mutual  compact.5  Ib.  iii.  370.  See 
also  ib.  i.  437  ;  ii.  272. 

1  ‘  There  is  (writes  Blackstone)  still 
another  species  of  property,  which  (if 
it  subsists)  being  grounded  on  labour 
and  invention,  is  more  properly  re¬ 
ducible  to  the  head  of  occupancy  than 
any  other.’  Commentaries ,  ed.  1775, 
ii.  405.  It  is  this  view  which  Johnson 
attacked  when  he  said  : — ‘  There 
seems  to  be  in  authours  a  stronger 
right  of  property  than  that  by  occu¬ 
pancy  ;  a  metaphysical  right,  a  right, 
as  it  were,  of  creation,  which  should 
from  its  nature  be  perpetual ;  but 
the  consent  of  nations  is  against  it, 
and  indeed  reason  and  the  interests 
of  learning  are  against  it,’  &c.  Life , 
ii.  259.  Lord  Camden  attacked  ‘  the 
metaphysical  refinements5  which  were 
brought  into  the  arguments.  Meta¬ 
physics  ‘  lent  its  artful  aid 5  to  both 
sides.  ‘  It  has,’  said  Mr.  Justice 
Aston,  ‘  been  ingeniously,  meta¬ 
physically,  and  subtilly  argued  on  the 
part  of  the  defendant,  “That  there 
is  a  want  of  property  in  the  thing 
itself  ”  ’  Letters  of  Hume ,  p.  279. 
Blackstone  says  that  ‘  it  is  urged  that 
the  right  is  of  too  subtile  and  unsub¬ 
stantial  a  nature  to  become  the  sub¬ 
ject  of  property  at  the  common  law.’ 
See  also  ante ,  i.  382  n. ;  ii.  437  n. 

purchase 


444 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


purchase  it  by  resigning  some  part  of  his  natural  right x,  the 
authour  must  recede  from  so  much  of  his  claim  as  shall  be 
deemed  injurious  or  inconvenient  to  Society. 

It  is  inconvenient  to  Society  that  an  useful  book  should 
become  perpetual  and  exclusive  property. 

The  Judgement  of  the  Lords  was  therefore  legally  and  politi¬ 
cally  right. 

But  the  authours  enjoyment  of  his  natural  right  might  without 
any  inconvenience  be  protracted  beyond  the  term  settled  by  the 
Statute.  And  it  is,  I  think,  to  be  desired 

1.  That  an  Authour  should  retain  during  his  life  the  sole  right 
of  printing  and  selling  his  work. 

This  is  agreeable  to  moral  right,  and  not  inconvenient  to  the 
publick,  for  who  will  be  so  diligent  as  the  authour  to  improve  the 
book,  and  who  can  know  so  well  how  to  improve  it  ? 

2.  That  the  authour  be  allowed,  as  by  the  present  act,  to 
alienate  his  right  only  for  fourteen  years. 

A  shorter  time  would  not  procure  a  sufficient  price,  and 
a  longer  would  cut  off  all  hope  of  future  profit,  and  consequently 
all  solicitude  for  correction  or  addition. 

3.  That  when  after  fourteen  years  the  copy  shall  revert  to 
the  authour,  he  be  allowed  to  alienate  it  again  only  for  seven 
years  at  a  time. 

After  fourteen  years  the  value  of  the  work  will  be  known, 
and  it  will  be  no  longer  bought  at  hazard.  Seven  years  of 
possession  will  therefore  have  an  assignable  price.  It  is  proper 
that  the  authour  be  always  incited  to  polish  and  improve  his 
work,  by  that  prospect  of  accruing  interest  which  those  shorter 
periods  of  alienation  will  afford. 

4.  That  after  the  authours  death  his  work  should  continue 
an  exclusive  property  capable  of  bequest  and  inheritance,  and 
of  conveyance  by  gift  or  sale  for  thirty  years. 

By  these  regulations  a  book  may  continue  the  property  of 

1  ‘  A  man  (said  Johnson)  is  bound  society,  gives  up  a  part  of  his  natural 
to  submit  to  the  inconveniences  of  liberty,  as  the  price  of  so  valuable 
society  as  he  enjoys  the  good.’  Life,  a  purchase.’  Blackstone’s  Commen- 
v.  87.  taries ,  ed.  1775,  i.  125. 

t  Every  man,  when  he  enters  into 


the 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


445 


the  authour,  or  of  those  who  claim  from  him,  about  fifty  years, 
a  term  sufficient  to  reward  the  writer  without  any  loss  to  the 
publick.  In  fifty  years  far  the  greater  number  of  books  are 
forgotten  and  annihilated,  and  it  is  for  the  advantage  of  learning 
that  those  which  fifty  years  have  not  destroyed  should  become 
bona  communia,  to  be  used  by  every  Scholar  as  he  shall 
think  best x. 

In  fifty  years  every  book  begins  to  require  notes  either  to 
explain  forgotten  allusions  and  obsolete  words ;  or  to  subjoin 
those  discoveries  which  have  been  made  by  the  gradual  ad¬ 
vancement  of  knowledge ;  or  to  correct  those  mistakes  which 


time  may  have  discovered  x. 

Such  Notes  cannot  be  written 

1  Johnson,  arguing  this  question 
in  1763,  was  for  granting  authors 
a  hundred  years  of  exclusive  right. 
Life ,  i.  439.  In  1773  he  said  : — 

‘  The  consent  of  nations  is  against  it 
[a  perpetual  copyright],  and  indeed 
reason  and  the  interests  of  learning 
are  against  it ;  for  were  it  to  be  per¬ 
petual,  no  book, however  useful, could 
be  universally  diffused  amongst  man¬ 
kind,  should  the  proprietor  take  it 
into  his  head  to  restrain  its  circula¬ 
tion.  No  book  could  have  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  being  edited  with  notes, 
however  necessary  to  its  elucidation, 
should  the  proprietor  perversely  op¬ 
pose  it.  For  the  general  good  of  the 
world,  therefore,  whatever  valuable 
work  has  once  been  created  by  an 
authour,  and  issued  out  by  him, 
should  be  understood  as  no  longer  in 
his  power,  but  as  belonging  to  the 
publick  ;  at  the  same  time  the  authour 
is  entitled  to  an  adequate  reward. 
This  he  should  have  by  an  exclusive 
right  to  his  work  for  a  considerable 
number  of  years.’  Life ,  ii.  259. 

By  the  present  law  copyright  lasts 
for  the  life  of  the  author  and  seven 
years  afterwards,  or  for  forty-two 
years,  whichever  is  the  longer  period. 


to  any  useful  purpose  without 

Carlyle  in  his  petition  to  the  House 
of  Commons  asked  for  sixty  years. 

‘  After  sixty  years,  unless  your 
Honourable  House  provide  other¬ 
wise,  they  [extraneous  persons]  may 
begin  to  steal.’  Miss  Martineau’s 
Thirty  Years'  Peace ,  ed.  1850,  ii. 

547- 

Macaulay,  opposing  this  period, 
said  : — ‘  Dr.  Johnson  died  fifty-six 
years  ago.  If  the  law  were  what  my 
honourable  and  learned  friend  wishes 
to  make  it,  somebody  would  now 
have  the  monopoly  of  Dr.  Johnson’s 
works.  Who  that  somebody  would 
be  it  is  impossible  to  say  ;  but  we 
may  venture  to  guess.  I  guess  then 
that  it  would  have  been  some  book¬ 
seller,  who  was  the  assign  of  another 
bookseller,  who  was  the  grandson  of 
a  third  bookseller,  who  had  bought 
the  copyright  from  Black  Frank, 
the  doctor’s  servant  and  residuary 
legatee,  in  1785  or  1786.’  Macaulay’s 
Misc.  Writings ,  ed.  1871,  p.  612. 

1  ‘Johnson  talked  with  approbation 
of  an  intended  edition  of  The  Spec¬ 
tator,  with  notes.  .  .  .  He  observed 
that  all  works  which  describe  manners 
require  notes  in  sixty  or  seventy 
years,  or  less.’  Life ,  ii.  21 1. 


the 


446 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


the  text,  and  the  text  will  frequently  be  refused  while  it  is 
any  man’s  property. 

I  am, 

Sir, 

Your  humble  Servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 


March  7,  1774. 


To  James  Macpherson1. 

Mr.  James  Macpherson, — I  received  your  foolish  and  im¬ 
pudent  note.  Whatever  insult  is  offered  me  I  will  do  my  best  to 
repel,  and  what  I  cannot  do  for  myself  the  law  will  do  for  me. 
I  will  not  desist  from  detecting  what  I  think  a  cheat  from  any 
fear  of  the  menaces  of  a  Ruffian. 

You  want  me  to  retract.  What  shall  I  retract?  I  thought 
your  book  an  imposture  from  the  beginning,  I  think  it  upon  yet 
surer  reasons  an  imposture  still.  For  this  opinion  I  give  the 
publick  my  reasons  which  I  here  dare  you  to  refute. 

But  however  I  may  despise  you,  I  reverence  truth,  and  if  you 
can  prove  the  genuineness  of  the  work  I  will  confess  it.  Your 
rage  I  defy,  your  abilities  since  your  Homer  are  not  so  formidable, 
and  what  I  have  heard  of  your  morals  disposes  me  to  pay  regard 
not  to  what  you  shall  say,  but  what  you  can  prove. 

You  may  print  this  if  you  will. 

Sam:  Johnson. 

Jan.  20,  1775. 

To  Mr.  James  Macpherson. 


1  This  copy  of  Johnson’s  letter  to 
Macpherson  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of 
Mrs.  Archer- Hind  of  Little  Newn- 
ham,  Cambridge,  who  possesses  a 
tracing  of  the  original  made  by  her 
father,  the  late  Mr.  Lewis  Pocock. 
At  the  sale  of  Mr.  Pocock’s  auto¬ 
graphs,  on  May  10,  1875,  the  original 
fetched  ,£50.  Letters ,  i.  307. 

The  copy  printed  in  the  Life ,  ii. 
298,  was  dictated  to  Boswell  by  John¬ 
son  from  memory.  It  runs  as  fol¬ 
lows  : — 


4  Mr.  James  Macpherson, 

‘  I  received  your  foolish  and  im¬ 
pudent  letter.  Any  violence  offered 
me  I  shall  do  my  best  to  repel ; 
and  what  I  cannot  do  for  myself,  the 
law  shall  do  for  me.  I  hope  I  never 
shall  be  deterred  from  detecting  what 
I  think  a  cheat,  by  the  menaces  of 
a  ruffian. 

4  What  would  you  have  me  retract  ? 
I  thought  your  book  an  imposture  ; 
I  think  it  an  imposture  still.  For 
this  opinion  I  have  given  my  reasons 

To 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson . 


447 


Dear  Sir, 

On  Monday  I  purpose  to  be  at  Oxford,  where  I  shall 
perhaps  stay  a  week,  from  whence  I  shall  come  to  Birmingham, 
and  so  to  Lichfield.  At  Lichfield  my  purpose  is  to  pass  a  week 
or  so,  but  whether  I  shall  stay  there  in  my  way  to  Ashbourne,  or 
in  [returning]  from  it,  you  may,  if  you  please,  determine.  When 
I  come  thither  I  will  write  to  you  or  perhaps  I  may  find  a  letter 
at  Mrs.  Porter’s. 

I  am, 

Sir, 

Your  affectionate  servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

May  27,  1775 


^  ^  To  the  Rev.  Dr.  Taylor3. 

Dear  Sir, 

I  was  sorry,  and  so  was  Mr.  Boswel3,  that  we  were  sum» 
moned  away  so  soon 4.  Our  effort  of  travelling  in  the  Evening 
was  useless.  We  did  not  get  home  till  Friday  morning.  Mrs.Thrale 
and  her  girl  are  gone  to  Bath 5.  The  blow  was  very  heavy 
upon  them. 

The  Expedition  however  still  proceeds  6,  so  that  I  shall  be  but 
a  short  time  here.  If  Mr.  Langdon  will  be  so  kind  as  to  send 


to  the  publick,  which  I  here  dare  you 
to  refute.  Your  rage  I  defy.  Your 
abilities,  since  your  Homer,  are  not 
so  formidable ;  and  what  I  hear  of 
your  morals  inclines  me  to  pay  re¬ 
gard,  not  to  what  you  shall  say,  but 
to  what  you  shall  prove.  You  may 
print  this  if  you  will. 

Sam.  Johnson.’ 

1  From  the  original  in  the  Buffalo 
Library. 

For  his  trip  to  the  Midland  Coun¬ 
ties  this  summer,  see  Letters ,  i.  323- 
365. 

2  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mr.  R.  B.  Adam  of  Buffalo. 
This  letter  was  sold  by  auction  for 


£ 6  15^.  on  April  8,  1891.  Letters , 
i.  387. 

3  In  the  Preface  to  the  Lette7'S  of 
Johnson  (p.  15)  I  have  pointed  out 
that  Johnson  always  wrote  his  friend’s 
name  Boswel.  Boswell’S  father  fol¬ 
lowed  this  spelling,  as  was  shown 
when  the  Auchinleck  Library  was 
dispersed.  In  many  of  the  books 
was  inscribed  Alex.  Boswel. 

4  They  were  summoned  to  London 
on  the  sudden  death  of  Mr.  Thrale’s 
son.  Lifey  ii.  468  ;  iii.  1. 

5  Ante ,  ii.  295  ;  Life ,  iii.  6. 

6  To  Italy.  Life ,  iii.  6.  It  was 
given  up  a  few  days  later.  Ib.  iii.  27. 
Ante ,  i.  263. 


the 


443 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


the  barley 1  next  week,  I  can  deliver  [it]  to  Boswel.  I  wish  he 
would  [put]  a  peck  more  in  a  separate  bag,  for  I  would  not 
break  the  main  bulk,  and  yet  I  cannot  well  help  it,  unless  I  have 
a  little  more. 

Mr.  Boswel  is  in  the  room  \  and  sends  his  respects.  Let  me 
know  whether  you  design  to  come  hither  before  I  am  to  go, 
and  if  you  come  we  will  contrive  to  pass  a  few  hours 
together. 

&  I  am, 

Sir, 

Your  most  humble  Servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

No.  8,  Bolt  Court,  Fleet  street  (not  Johnson’s  Court3). 

Apr.  4,  1776. 

To  the  Reverend  Dr.  Taylor,  in  Ashbourn,  Derbyshire. 


To  Miss  Reynolds4. 

Dearest  Madam, 

When  you  called  on  Mrs.  Thrale,  I  find  by  enquiry  that 
she  was  really  abroad,  the  same  thing  happenned  \sic\  to 
Mrs.  Montague,  of  which  I  beg  you  to  inform  her,  for  she  went 
likewise  by  my  opinion.  The  Denial,  if  it  had  been  feigned, 
would  not  have  pleased  me.  Your  visits  however  are  kindly 


paid  and  very  kindly  taken 5. 

1  Mr.  Langdon  is  mentioned  the 
following  year  as  buying  ‘  fifteen  tun 
of  cheese  at  Nottingham  fair.’  Letters , 
ii.  45.  Johnson  wrote  from  Ash¬ 
bourne  in  July,  1775  : — ‘  We  talk  here 
of  Polish  oats  and  Siberian  barley. . . 
I  intend  to  procure  specimens  of 
both,  which  we  will  try  in  some  spots 
of  our  own  ground.’  Jb.  i.  352. 

2  Life ,  iii.  17. 

3  He  had  lately  removed  from 
Johnson’s  Court.  Ib.  ii.  427. 

4  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Lady  Colomb.  The  first 
paragraph  has  been  long  in  print. 
Letters ,  i.  391. 

Johnson’s  letter  to  Miss  Rey¬ 


nolds  of  Oct.  27,  1763  (Lb.  i.  no),  as 
printed  by  Croker,  ends  : — *  Most 
sincerely  yours.’  I  suspected  the 
word  sincerely  for  I  had  never  known 
it  thus  used  by  Johnson.  By  Lady 
Colomb’s  kindness  I  have  seen  the 
original.  The  word  is  not  clear,  but 
I  believe  it  is  zealously. 

5  Mrs.  Thrale  had  lost  her  only 
son  eleven  days  earlier.  Johnson 
wrote  to  Miss  Reynolds  on  the 
nth: — ‘ A  visit  from  you  will  be 
well  taken.  ...  I  am  sure  that  it 
will  be  thought  seasonable  and  kind, 
and  I  wish  you  not  to  omit  it.’ 
Ib.  i.  389. 


Pray 


Letter's  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


449 


Pray  tell  Sir  Joshua  that  I  have  examined  Mr.  Thrale’s 
Man1,  and  find  no  foundation  for  the  story  of  the  Alehouse 
and  mulled  Beer.  He  was  at  the  play  two  nights  before,  with 
one  of  the  chief  men  in  the  Brewhouse,  and  came  home  at 
the  regular  time.  This,  I  believe,  is  true,  for  Mrs.  Thrale 
told  me  that  she  had  sent  him  to  his  friend  Murphy’s  play2, 
and  if  there  had  been  [anything]  to  be  told,  I  should  then  have 
heard  it. 

We  are  going  to  Bath  this  morning,  but  I  could  not  part 
without  telling  you  the  real  state  of  your  visit. 

I  am, 

dearest  Madam, 

Your  most  humble  Servant, 

Sam.  Johnson. 

Apr.  15,  1 776. 


To  Miss  Reynolds3. 

My  dearest  Dear, 

When  I  am  grown  better,  which  is,  I  hope,  at  no  great 


distance,  for  I  mend  graduall) 
ourselves,  and  look  over  your 

1  Samuel  Greaves,  who  after  Mr. 
Thrale’s  death  kept  the  Essex  Head, 
where  Johnson’s  last  club  met.  Life , 
iv.  253  ;  ante ,  i.  no  n. 

2  Murphy’s  Three  Weeks  after 
Marriage ,  which  under  the  title  of 
What  we  must  all  come  to  had  been 
hissed  off  the  stage  in  1764,  was  re¬ 
vived  on  March  30,  1776,  and  was 
successful.  Diet.  Nat.  Biog. 

3  From  a  copy  of  the  original  in  the 
possession  of  Lady  Colomb. 

Mr.  Johnson  was  recovering  from 
the  gout.  On  June  3  he  wrote  : — 

‘  I  receive  ladies  and  dismiss  them 
sitting. — Painful  pre-eminence .’  Let¬ 
ters ,  i.  403. 

He  more  than  once  corrected  Miss 
Reynolds’s  productions.  Ante ,  ii. 

VOL.  II.  G 


,  we  will  make  a  little  time  to 
dear  little  production,  and  try 

279  n.  In  his  letter  to  her  of  April  8, 
1782,  as  printed  in  the  Letters ,  ii. 
249,  from  Croker’s  Boswell ,  is  the 
following  passage : — 

‘  Your  system  of  the  mental  fabric 
is  exceedingly  obscure,  and  without 
more  attention  than  will  be  willingly 
bestowed  is  unintelligible.  The  plans 
of  Burnaby  will  be  more  safely  under¬ 
stood,  and  are  often  charming.  I 
was  delighted  with  the  different 
bounty  of  different  ages.’ 

In  the  copy  of  the  original  sent 
me  by  Lady  Colomb  the  last  para¬ 
graph  runs  : — ‘  The  Ideas  of  Beauty 
will  be  more  easily  understood,  and 
are  often  charming.  I  am  delighted 
with  the  different  beauty  of  different 
ages.’ 

g 


to 


45° 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


to  make  it  such  as  we  may  both  like.  I  will  not  forget  it,  nor 
neglect  it,  for  I  love  your  tenderness. 

I  am, 

Dear  Madam, 

Your  most  humble  Servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

June  15,  1 776. 

To  Miss  Reynolds1. 

Dear  Madam, 

I  want  no  company  but  yours  nor  wish  for  any  other.  I  will 
wait  on  you  on  Saturday,  and  am  so  well  that  I  am  very 
able  to  find  my  way  without  a  carriage. 

I  am, 

Dear  Madam, 

Your  most  humble  Servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

Oct.  21  [1779]. 


To  [Lucy  Porter2]. 

Dear  Madam, 

I  have  inclosed  Mr.  Boswels  answer. 

I  still  continue  better  than  when  you  saw  me,  but  am  not 
just  at  this  time  very  well,  but  hope  to  mend  again.  Publick 
affairs  remain  as  they  were.  Do  not  let  the  papers  fright  you  3. 

I  have  ordered  you  some  oisters  this  week,  which  I  hope  you 


1  From  a  copy  of  the  original  in 
the  possession  of  Lady  Colomb. 

On  Oct.  25  Johnson  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Thrale  : — ‘  On  Saturday  I  walked 
to  Dover-street  [Miss  Reynolds’s 
lodging]  and  back. ...  I  am  to  dine 
with  Renny  [Miss  Reynolds]  to¬ 
morrow.’  Letters ,  ii.  113.  On  Oct. 
28  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘  I 

dined  on  Tuesday  with - ,  and 

hope  her  little  head  begins  to  settle. 
She  has,  however,  some  scruples 
about  the  company  of  a  lady  whom 
she  has  lately  known.  I  pacified 


her  as  well  as  I  could.’  Ib.  ii.  116. 
Tuesday  was  the  26th  ;  so  that  it 
was  Miss  Reynolds’s  little  head  which 
was  beginning  to  settle. 

2  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Messrs.  J.  Pearson  &  Co., 
5  Pall  Mall  Place,  London.  Part  of 
this  letter  is  given  in  the  Letters ,  ii. 
129.  It  is  not  addressed,  but  it  was 
written  to  Johnson’s  step-daughter, 
Lucy  Porter.  See  ib.  n.  1  and  Life , 
iii.  417. 

3  There  was  fear  of  an  invasion. 
Ante ,  i.  203  ;  Letters ,  ii.  109,  120. 

will 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


45 1 


will  get,  though  your  oisters  have  sometimes  miscarried  \  Write 
when  you  can.  T 


Dec.  2,  1779. 


My  dear, 

Your  humble  servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 


To  [the  Rev.  —  Allen1 2]. 

Sir,  [1780.] 

Mr.  William  Shaw,  the  gentleman  from  whom  you  will 
receive  this,  is  a  studious  and  literary  man ;  he  is  a  stranger,  and 
will  be  glad  to  be  introduced  into  proper  company;  and  he  is 
my  friend,  and  any  civility  you  shall  shew  him  will  be  an 
obligation  on,  g-r 

Your  most  obedient  servant. 


To  Miss 

Dearest  Love, 

I  am  engaged  to  dinner 

1  Johnson  sent  her  oysters  the 
following  spring.  Letters ,  ii.  134. 

2  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mr.  R,  B.  Adam  of  Buffalo. 
First  published  in  Memoirs  of  the 
Life  and  Writings  of  Dr.  fohnson, 
1785,  p.  156,  where  it  is  stated  that 
‘  upon  Mr.  Shaw’s  going  to  settle  in 
Kent  in  1780  as  a  curate,  the  Doctor 
wrote  this  letter  to  Mr.  Allen,  the 
Vicar  of  St.  Nicholas,  Rochester,  in 
his  favour.’  Mr.  Shaw  published  a 
Gaelick  Grammar  and  Dictionary . 
He  also  published  two  pamphlets 
on  the  Ossian  controversy.  See 
Lowndes’s  Bibl.  Man.  ed.  1871,  p. 
1738- 

In  1777  Johnson  tried  to  get  him 
appointed  chaplain  ‘  to  one  of  the 
new-raised  regiments.’  Life ,  iii.  214; 
iv.  252. 

G 


Sam.  Johnson. 


Thrale  3. 

[Winter  of  1782-3.] 

to  morrow,  of  which  I  forgot 

3  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mr.  R.  B.  Adam  of  Buffalo.  It 
was  sold  by  auction  on  Feb.  28, 
1893,  for  £ 3  5s. 

Johnson  wrote  to  Boswell  on  Dec. 
7,  1782: — ‘Mrs.  Thrale  and  the 
three  Misses  are  now  for  the  winter 
in  Argyll-street.’  Lb.  iv.  157,  Bos¬ 
well  found  him  there  in  M,arch,  1783. 
Lb.  p.  164.  Miss  Thrale  was  John¬ 
son’s  Queeney.  Ib.  iii.  422.  She 
married  Admiral  Viscount  Keith. 
Letters,  i.  133,  n.  I.  On  Nov.  12, 
1 78 1 ,  J ohnson  wrote  to  her  mother : — 
‘  I  have  a  mind  to  look  on  Queeney 
as  my  own  dear  girl.’  Ib.  ii.  234. 
He  sometimes  complains  of  her  neg¬ 
lect.  He  wrote,  during  an  illness,  on 
Dec.  20,  1782: — ‘Queeney  never 
sent  me  a  kind  word.’  Ib.  ii.  279  ; 
on  July  5, 1783  : — ‘  I  think  Queeney’s 

2,  tO 


452 


Letters  of  Dr .  Johnson. 


to  tell  you,  but  I  hope  you  will  favour  me  with  a  call  early  on 
Wednesday. 

I  am,  dearest, 

,  Your  most  humble  servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

Monday,  17th. 

To  Miss  Thrale,  No.  37,  Argyle  Street. 

Monday,  nine  in  the  morning. 


To  Dr.  Taylor  \ 

Dear  Sir, 

I  am  sorry  to  hear  that  you  are  not  well.  I  have  had  a  very 
troublesome  night  myself.  I  fancy  the  Weather  may  hurt  us, 
if  that  is  the  case,  we  may  hope  for  better  health  as  the  year 
advances. 

I  had  a  letter  last  night  from  Mr.  Langley2,  which  I  will 
shew  you  to  morrow ;  which  will  I  believe  incline  you  to  doubt 
Mr.  Flint’s  veracity3,  yet  I  believe  it  will  be  best  for  the  Girls 
to  take  the  money  offered  them,  but  you  shall  consider  it  to 
morrow. 

I  am, 

Sir, 

Your,  &c. 

Sam:  Johnson. 

I  shall  come  to  morrow  early  in  the  evening. 

March  2,  1782. 

To  the  Reverend  Doctor  Taylor. 

Endorsed  in  another  hand,  2  March,  1782. 


silence  has  something  either  of  lazi¬ 
ness  or  unkindness.’  Letters ,  ii.  316 ; 
on  March  16,  1784,  ‘  Miss  Thrale 
rather  neglects  me.’  Id.  ii.  384  ;  on 
June  26,  1784  ‘  My  dear  girls  seem 

all  to  forget  me.’  Ib.  ii.  404.  They 
had  troubles  of  their  own  with 
their  mother’s  second  marriage. 
Queeney  visited  him  in  his  last  ill¬ 
ness.  Life ,  iv.  339,  n.  3. 

1  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mr.  S.  J.  Davey,  47  Great 


Russell  Street,  London. 

2  The  head  master  of  Ashbourne 
Grammar  School.  Ib.  iii.  138. 

3  Mr.  Flint  had  married  a  widow, 
Mrs.  Collier,  who  had  brought  him, 
Johnson  thought,  about  £ 200  a  year. 
She  was  dead,  and  he  apparently 
was  trying  to  keep  from  her  daughters 
by  her  first  husband  a  part  of  her 
property  which  they  claimed.  See 
Letters ,  ii.  263,  269,  270,  278,  280, 
282. 


To 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


453 


To  the  Rev.  James  Compton1. 

Sir, 

Your  business,  I  suppose,  is  in  a  way  of  as  easy  progress 
as  such  business  ever  has.  It  is  seldom  that  event  keeps  pace 
with  expectation. 

The  scheme  of  your  book  I  cannot  say  that  I  fully  comprehend. 
I  would  not  have  you  ask  less  than  an  hundred  guineas,  for  it 
seems  a  large  octavo.  Go  to  Mr.  Davies  in  Russel  Street2,  shew 
him  this  letter,  and  shew  him  the  book  if  he  desires  to  see  it. 
He  will  tell  you  what  hopes  you  may  form,  and  to  what  Book¬ 
seller  you  should  apply. 

If  you  succeed  in  selling  your  book,  you  may  do  better  than 
by  dedicating  it  to  me.  You  may  perhaps  obtain  permission 
to  dedicate  it  to  the  Bishop  of  London,  or  to  Dr.  Vyse 3, 
and  make  way  by  your  book  to  more  advantage  than  I  can 
procure  you. 

Please  to  tell  Mrs.  Williams  that  I  grow  better,  and  that  I  wish 
to  know  how  she  goes  on.  You,  Sir,  may  write  for  her  to, 

Sir, 

Your  most  humble  Servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

Oct.  24,  1782. 

To  the  Reverend  Mr.  Compton.  To  be  sent  to  Mrs.  Williams. 


To  Miss  Reynolds4. 

Dear  Madam, 

Instead  of  having  me  at  your  table,  which  cannot,  I  fear, 


1  From  the  facsimile  in  Scrib?ier's 
Magazine ,  September,  1894,  p.  344  ; 
published  also  in  Underbrush  by 
James  T.  Fields,  Boston,  5th  ed.,  p.  17. 

Mr.  Fields  found  this  letter  in  a 
copy  of  Rasselas  purchased  at  a 
second-hand  bookshop. 

For  an  account  of  Compton,  whom 
Johnson  had  known  in  Paris  as  a 
Benedictine  monk,  see  Letters ,  ii. 
271,  290. 


His  book,  it  seems,  was  never  pub¬ 
lished.  There  is  no  mention  of  it 
in  the  Catalogue  of  the  British 
Museum,  or  of  him  in  the  Dictionary 
of  National  Biog7'aphy. 

2  Ante ,  i.  427  ;  ii.  61. 

3  Rector  of  Lambeth.  Letters ,  ii. 
14. 

4  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Messrs.  J.  Pearson  &  Co., 
5  Pall  Mall  Place,  London. 


quickly 


454 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


quickly  happen,  come,  if  you  can,  to  dine  this  day  with  me. 
It  will  give  pleasure  to  a  sick  friend  r. 

I  am, 

Madam, 

Yours  affectionately, 

Oct.  23,  1783.  SAM:  J°HNSON- 

To  Mrs.  Reynolds1 2. 


To  Mr.  Sastres3. 

Sir, 

I  am  very  much  displeased  with  myself  for  my  negligence 
on  Monday.  I  had  totally  forgotten  my  engagement  to  you 

and  Mr. - ,  for  which  I  desire  you  to  make  my  apologies  to 

Mr. - ,  and  tell  him  that  if  he  will  give  me  leave  to  repay  his 

visit,  I  will  take  the  first  opportunity  of  waiting  on  him. 

I  am, 


April  25,  [1784.] 

To  Mr.  Sastres,  at  Mr. 


Sir, 

Your  most  humble  servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

April  26,  Evening. 

Bookseller  in  Mortimer  Street4,  Oxford  Road. 


Sir, 


To  Griffith  Jones5. 


You  are  accustomed  to  consider  Advertisements,  and  to 
observe  what  stile  has  most  effect  upon  the  Publick.  I  shall 


1  He  had  written  to  her  on 

Oct.  1  : — ‘  I  am  very  ill  indeed - To 

my  other  afflictions  is  added  soli¬ 
tude.’  Letters,  ii.  337.  On  the  27th 
he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thrale : — ‘  I  have 
now  neither  pain  nor  sickness.  .  .  . 
But  I  am  very  solitary.’  Ib.  p.  345. 

2  Miss  Reynolds,  who  was  fifty- 
four  years  old,  in  accordance  with 
the  common  custom,  was  now  digni¬ 
fied  as  Mrs.  Reynolds.  Ib.  i.  367, 
n.  4. 

3  From  a  copy  of  the  original  in 

the  possession  of  Mr.  Thacher  of 


Albany,  New  York,  forwarded  to  me 
by  Professor  Lounsbury  of  Yale,  who 
informs  me  that  the  blanks  in  the 
letter  stand  for  a  name  that  has  been 
most  carefully  obliterated. 

4  Johnson  wrote  to  Sastres  on 

August  21,  1784  ‘  I  am  glad  that 

a  letter  has  at  last  reached  you ; 
what  became  of  the  two  former,  which 
were  directed  to  Mortimer  instead 
of  Margaret- street,  I  have  no  means 
of  knowing.’  Ib.  ii.  414. 

5  From  the  European  Magazbie 
for  September,  1798,  p.  163. 


think 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


455 


think  it  a  favour  if  you  will  be  pleased  to  take  the  trouble 
of  digging  twelve  lines  of  common  sense  out  of  this  strange 
scribble,  and  insert  it  three  times  in  The  Daily  Advertiser ,  at 
the  expence  of,  gjr 

Your  humble  servant, 

Sam:  Johnson. 

Oct.  9. 

Please  to  return  me  the  paper. 


To  Miss  Reynolds, 

Enclosing  a  letter  to  be  sent  in  her  name  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  z. 
Dear  Brother,  [Undated.] 

I  know  that  complainers  are  never  welcome  yet  you  must 
allow  me  to  complain  of  your  unkindness,  because  it  lies  heavy 


1  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Lady  Colomb. 

Miss  Reynolds  for  many  years  kept 
house  for  her  brother.  Northcote,  in 
1771,  writing  to  his  brother  during 
Reynolds’s  absence  from  home, 
says  : — ‘  He  never  writes  to  her,  and, 
between  ourselves,  I  believe  but  sel¬ 
dom  converses  as  we  used  to  do  in 
our  family.  I  found  she  knew  no¬ 
thing  of  his  having  invited  me  to  be 
his  scholar  and  live  in  the  house  till 
I  told  her  of  it.  She  has  the  com¬ 
mand  of  the  household  and  the  ser¬ 
vants  as  much  as  he  has.’  He  knew 
that  Johnson  had  written  a  letter  in 
her  name,  which,  he  said,  must  have 
been  detected  from  the  diction.  It 
began  : — ‘  I  am  well  aware  that 
complaints  are  always  odious,  but 
complain  I  must.’  As  it  is  unlikely 
that  Johnson  wrote  two  letters  North- 
cote’s  memory  was  too  weak  or  his 
imagination  too  strong  to  give  a 
correct  report. 

Her  character  was  the  opposite  of 
her  brother’s.  Mme.  D’Arblay  de¬ 
scribes  her  as  ‘  living  in  an  habitual 


perplexity  of  mind  and  irresolution 
of  conduct,  which  to  herself  was  rest¬ 
lessly  tormenting,  and  to  all  around 
her  was  teasingly  wearisome.’  She 
describes  £  her  excessive  oddness  and 
absurdity.’  After  leaving  her  brother’s 
house  she  returned  to  Devonshire. 
‘  In  a  rough  draft  of  one  of  her  letters 
she  says  : — “The  height  of  my  desire 
is  to  be  able  to  spend  a  few  months 
in  the  year  near  the  arts  and  sciences, 
but  if  you  think  that  it  will  rather 
bring  my  character  in  question,  for 
my  brother  to  be  in  London,  and 
I  not  at  his  house,  I  will  content 
myself  with  residing  at  Windsor.”  ’ 
In  the  end  she  lodged  with  Hoole, 
the  translator  of  Ariosto.  North- 
cote’s  Reynolds ,  i.  203  ;  Taylor’s  Rey¬ 
nolds,  i.  91,  416;  Mme.  D’Arblay’s 
Diary ,  ii.  219. 

Reynolds  seems  to  have  had  but 
little  sympathy  with  his  sisters.  Lady 
Colomb  has  the  original  of  the  fol¬ 
lowing  letter  written  to  him  by  one 
of  them : — 

‘  Thy  soul  is  a  shocking  spectacle 
of  poverty.  When  thy  outside  is,  as 

at 


456 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


at  my  heart  and  because  I  am  not  conscious  that  I  ever  deserved 
it.  I  have  not  perhaps  been  always  careful  enough  to  please  but 
you  can  charge  me,  and  I  can  charge  myself  with  no  offence 
which  a  Brother  may  not  forgive. 

If  you  ask  me  what  I  suffer  from  you,  I  can  answer  that 
I  suffer  too  much  in  the  loss  of  your  notice ;  but  to  that  is 
added  the  neglect  of  the  world  which  is  the  consequence  of  yours. 

If  you  ask  what  will  satisfy  me,  I  shall  be  satisfied  with  such 
a  degree  of  attention  when  I  visit  you,  as  may  set  me  above  the 
contempt  of  your  servants,  with  your  calling  now  and  then  at  my 
lodgings  and  with  your  inviting  me  from  time  to  time  with 
such  parties  as  I  may  properly  appear  in.  This  is  not  much  for 
a  sister  who  has  at  least  done  you  no  harm,  and  this  I  hope  you 
will  promise  by  your  answer  to  this  letter ;  for  a  refusal  will  give 
me  more  pain  than  you  can  desire  or  intend  to  inflict. 

I  am,  &c. 

Dear  Madam, 

This  is  my  letter,  which  at  least  I  like  better  than  yours. 
But  take  your  choice,  and  if  you  like  mine  alter  any  thing  that 
you  think  not  ladylike.  I  shall  call  at  about  one. 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  to  Miss  Reynolds1. 


Dear  Sister, 

I  am  very  much  obliged  to 

thy  inside  now  is,  as  I  told  thee  ten 
year  since  I  will  not  shut  the  door 
against  thee.  But  it  may  be,  thy 
soul  is  past  all  recovery.  If  so,  I  shall 
never  see  thee  more.  Thy  vissitation 
is  not  yet  come  :  and  who  knows  in 
what  shape  it  will  come  :  or  whether 
it  will  come  at  all.  Wo  be  to  thee  if 
it  does  not  come. 

From  thy  best  friend 

Eliz.  Johnson. 

Nov.  8tk,  1776.’ 

She  declined  his  offer  to  receive 
into  his  house  one  of  her  sons  ‘  who 
had  shown  some  talent  in  drawing.’ 
Taylor’s  Reynolds ,  i.  461. 


Richmond 2. 

you  for  your  kind  and  generous 

1  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Lady  Colomb.  This  letter  is 
endorsed  by  Miss  Reynolds: — ‘I  be¬ 
lieve  in  ’8 1.’ 

2  On  Aug.  25,  1780,  Johnson  wrote 
to  Mrs.  Thrale  : — ‘  I  have  not  dined 
out  for  some  time  but  with  Renny 
[Miss  Reynolds]  or  Sir  Joshua  ;  and 
next  week  Sir  Joshua  goes  to  Devon¬ 
shire,  and  Renny  to  Richmond,  and 
I  am  left  by  myself.’  Letters ,  ii.  201. 
‘Sir  Joshua’s  house  is  delightfully 
situated,  almost  at  the  top  of  Rich¬ 
mond  Hill.’  Mme.  D’Arblay’s  Diary , 
ii.  143. 


offer 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


457 


offer  in  regard  to  the  house  at  Richmond,  not  only  in  giving  me 
leave  to  use  it  occasionally  but  even  as  long  as  I  live,  provided 
I  will  give  it  to  you,  but  as  I  have  no  such  thought  at  present 
I  can  only  thank  you  for  your  kindness.  Tho  I  am  much  older 
than  you  I  hope  I  am  not  yet  arrived  to  dotage  as  you  seem  to 
think  I  am,  voluntarily  to  put  myself  in  the  situation  of  receiving 
the  favour  of  living  in  my  own  house  instead  of  conferring  the 
favour  of  letting  you  live  in  it. 

I  am  your  most  affectionate  Brother, 

J.  Reynolds. 

I  have  enclosed  a  Bank  Bill  of  ten  Pounds r. 


From  James  Boswell  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds2. 

Edinburgh,  6  February,  1784. 

My  Dear  Sir, 

I  long  exceedingly  to  hear  from  you.  Sir  William  Forbes 3 
brought  me  good  accounts  of  you,  and  Mr.  Temple4  sent  me  very 
pleasing  intelligence  concerning  the  fair  Palmeria 5.  But  a  line 
or  two  from  yourself  is  the  next  thing  to  seeing  you. 

My  anxiety  about  Dr.  Johnson  is  truly  great.  I  had  a  letter6 
from  him  within  these  six  weeks,  written  with  his  usual  acuteness 
and  vigour  of  mind.  But  he  complained  sadly  of  the  state  of 
his  health ;  and  I  have  been  informed  since,  that  he  is  worse. 
I  intend  to  be  in  London  next  month,  chiefly  to  attend  upon  him 
with  respectful  affection.  But  in  the  mean  time,  it  will  be  a  great 
favour  done  me,  if  you  who  know  him  so  well,  will  be  kind 
enough  to  let  me  know  particularly  how  he  is 1 . 


1  ‘In  a  rough  draft  of  one  of  her 
letters  she  adverts  to  the  income 
allowed  her  by  her  brother,  as  suffi¬ 
cient  to  keep  her  within  the  sphere 
of  gentility,  “  without  pecuniary 
schemes  to  raise  it  higher.”’  He 
left  her  ,£2,500  in  the  Funds  for 
life  ;  to  his  niece  Mrs.  Gwatkin  he 
left  four  times  as  much  absolutely, 
while  Miss  Palmer  inherited  nearly 
1 00, coo.  Taylor’s  Reynolds ,  i.  92  ; 
ii-  635. 


2  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Lady  Colomb. 

3  Ante ,  ii.  195 ;  Life,  v.  24. 

4  The  grandfather  of  the  Arch¬ 
bishop  of  Canterbury.  Life,  i.  436. 

5  Probably  Sir  Joshua’s  niece  Mary 
Palmer. 

6  lb.  iv.  248. 

7  Johnson  wrote  to  Boswell  on 
Feb.  11 : — ‘  I  hear  of  many  enquiries 
which  your  kindness  has  disposed 
you  to  make  after  me.’  Ib.  iv.  259. 

I  hope 


45s 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


I  hope  Mr.  Dilly  conveyed  to  you  my  Letter  on  the  State  of 
the  Nation  1  from  the  Author.  I  know  your  political  principles, 
and  indeed  your  settled  system  of  thinking  upon  civil  society 
and  subordination,  to  be  according  to  my  own  heart.  And 
therefore  I  doubt  not  you  will  approve  of  my  honest  zeal.  But 
what  monstrous  effects  of  Party  do  we  now  see !  I  am  really 
vexed  at  the  conduct  of  some  of  our  friends 2. 

Amidst  the  conflict,  our  friend  of  Port  Elliot  is  with  much 
propriety  created  a  Peer 3.  But  why  o  why  did  he  not  obtain  the 
title  of  Baron  Mahogany 4  ?  Genealogists  and  Heralds  would 
have  had  curious  work  of  it  to  explain  and  illustrate  that 
title. 

I  ever  am  with  sincere  regard, 

My  Dear  Sir, 

Your  affectionate 

humble  servant, 

James  Boswell. 


1  Life ,  iv.  258,  260-1. 

2  Johnson  wrote  to  Boswell  on  Feb. 
27  : — ‘  I  am  very  much  of  your 
opinion,  and,  like  you,  feel  great  in¬ 
dignation  at  the  indecency  with  which 
the  King  is  every  day  treated.’  7b. 
iv.  261. 

The  struggle  between  the  late  Co¬ 
alition  Ministry  and  the  King  and 
Pitt  was  still  going  on.  Among  those 
whom  Boswell  calls  ‘  our  friends  ’  was 
Burke. 

3  He  had  been  raised  to  the  peer¬ 
age,  under  the  title  of  Baron  Eliot  of 
St.  Germans,  in  a  time  of  great  dis¬ 
honour.  ‘Pitt’s  cousin,  Earl  Temple, 
had  been  in  the  royal  closet,  and  had 
there  been  authorised  to  let  it  be 
known  that  His  Majesty  would  con¬ 
sider  all  who  voted  for  the  bill  [Fox’s 

India  bill]  as  his  enemies.  The 
ignominious  commission  was  per¬ 
formed  ;  and  instantly  a  troop  of 
Lords  of  the  Bedchamber,  of 
Bishops  who  wished  to  be  translated, 


and  of  Scotch  peers  who  wished  to 
be  re-elected  made  haste  to  change 
sides.’  Macaulay’s  Misc.  Writings , 
ed.  1871,  p.  407.  On  Dec.  30,  1783, 
Horace  Walpole  wrote  (. Letters ,  viii. 
447) : — ‘  They  are  crying  Peerages 
about  the  streets  in  barrows,  and  can 
get  none  off.’  At  the  general  election 
of  1780  Eliot  had  been  opposed  to 
the  King’s  party.  Gibbon,  who  lost 
his  seat,  writes  : — ‘  Mr.  Elliot  was 
now  deeply  engaged  in  the  measures 
of  opposition,  and  the  electors  of 
Liskeard  are  commonly  of  the  same 
opinion  as  Mr.  Elliot.’  Gibbon’s 
Misc.  Works ,  v.  238. 

4  At  a  dinner  at  Sir  Joshua  Rey¬ 
nolds’,  in  1781,  ‘  Mr.  Eliot  mentioned 
a  curious  liquor  peculiar  to  his 
country,  which  the  Cornish  fisher¬ 
men  drink.  They  call  it  Mahogany  ; 
and  it  is  made  of  two  parts  gin,  and 
one  part  treacle,  well  beaten  together.’ 
Life ,  iv.  78. 

James 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson. 


459 


James  Boswell  to  Lord  Thurlow1. 

My  Lord, 

Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  though  wonderfully  recovered  from 
a  complication  of  dangerous  illness,  is  by  no  means  well,  and 
I  have  reason  to  think  that  his  valuable  life  cannot  be  preserved 
long,  without  the  benignant  influence  of  a  southern  climate. 

It  would  therefore  be  of  very  great  moment  were  he  to 
go  to  Italy  before  Winter  sets  in ;  and  I  know  he  wishes  it 
much.  But  the  objection  is  that  his  pension  of  £300  a  year 
would  not  be  sufficient  to  defray  his  expence,  and  make  it 
convenient  for  Mr.  Sastres,  an  ingenious  and  worthy  native  of  that 
country,  and  a  teacher  of  Italian  here,  to  accompany  him 2. 

As  I  am  well  assured  of  your  Lordship’s  regard  for  Dr.  Johnson 
I  presume,  without  his  knowledge,  so  far  to  indulge  my  anxious 
concern  for  him,  as  to  intrude  upon  your  Lordship  with  this 
suggestion,  being  persuaded  that  if  a  representation  of  the  matter 
were  to  be  made  to  his  Majesty  by  proper  authority  the  Royal 
Bounty  would  be  extended  in  a  suitable  manner. 

Your  Lordship  I  cannot  doubt,  will  forgive  me  for  taking  this 
liberty.  I  even  flatter  myself  you  will  approve  of  it.  I  am  to 
set  out  for  Scotland  on  Monday  morning ;  so  that  if  your  Lord- 
ship  should  have  any  commands  for  me,  as  to  this  pious  negotia¬ 
tion,  you  will  be  pleased  to  send  them  before  that  time.  But 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  with  whom  I  have  consulted,  will  be  here, 
and  will  gladly  give  all  attention  to  it. 

% 

I  am  with  very  great  respect, 

My  Lord, 

Your  Lordship’s  most  obedient 

and  most  humble  servant, 

James  Boswell. 

General  Paoli’s,  Upper  Seymour  Street,  Portman  Square3. 

24  June,  1784. 


1  From  the  copy  in  Boswell’s  hand¬ 
writing  of  the  original.  This  copy 
Boswell,  no  doubt,  had  given  to 
Reynolds,  when,  on  setting  out  for 
Scotland,  he  left  the  management  of 
the  ‘  pious  negotiation  ’  described  in 
the  letter  in  Sir  Joshua’s  hands.  Life , 
iv.  326,  339.  For  Thurlow’s  answer 


see  ib.  p.  336  ;  ante ,  i.  441.  For  this 
interesting  letter  I  am  indebted  to 
Lady  Colomb. 

2  In  th zLife  there  is  no  mention  of 
Sastres  as  his  companion,  though 
his  going  explains  why  a  larger  sum 
was  required. 

3  ‘  I  was  (writes  Boswell)  enter- 

SlR 


460 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson . 


Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  to  James  Boswell1. 

Wednesday. 

This  being  St.  Lukes  day,  the  Company  of  Painters  dine  in 
their  Hall  in  the  City,  to  which  I  am  invited  and  desired  to  bring 
any  friend  with  me. 

As  you  love  to  see  life  in  all  its  modes  if  you  have  a  mind 
to  go  I  will  can  |  [sic]  you  about  two  o’clock,  the  black-guards 
dine  at  half  an  hour  after 2. 

Y  ours, 

J.  Reynolds. 

James  Boswell,  Esq. 


Dr.  Adams  to  Dr.  Scott3. 


Dear  Sir, 


Oxford,  Feb.  8,  1785. 


We  have  received  a  most  agreeable  Token  of  our  Friend 
Dr.  Johnson’s  Regard  for  his  College  in  a  Present  of  his  Books 
and  of  his  Publications  of  every  kind  which  he  sent  us  a  little 
before  his  death 4.  Mr.  Sergrove  informs  me  that  there  are  some 
literary  Anecdotes  found  among  his  Papers  which  you  have  had 
the  Kind  Thought  of  depositing  likewise  in  our  Library 5.  These 


tained  with  the  kindest  attention  as 
General  Paoli’s  constant  guest  while 
I  was  in  London,  till  I  had  a  house 
of  my  own  there.’  Life ,  iii.  35. 

1  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Lady  Colomb. 

‘  Mr.  Camden,  the  famous  anti¬ 
quarian,  whose  father  was  a  painter 
in  the  Old  Bailey,  gave  the  Painter 
Stainers’  Company  a  silver  cup  and 
cover,  which  they  use  every  St.  Luke’s 
day  at  their  election  ;  the  old  Master 
drinking  to  the  one  then  elected  out 
of  it.’  Dodsley’s  London ,  1761,  v. 
103. 

2  Reynolds  at  home  always  ‘  dined 
at  five  o’clock  precisely.’  North- 
cote’s  Reynolds ,  ii.  95.  His  strong 
language  is  perhaps  due  to  his  vexa¬ 


tion  at  losing  two  or  three  hours  of 
his  working-day  ;  ‘  none  of  his  hours 
were  ever  spent  in  idleness,  or  lost  in 
dissipation.’  Ib.  i.  119. 

3  From  the  original  in  the  posses¬ 
sion  of  Mr.  R.  B.  Adam. 

Dr.  Adams  was  the  Master  of 
Pembroke  College ;  Dr.  Scott  (after¬ 
wards  Lord  Stowell)  was  one  of  the 
executors  of  Johnson’s  will.  Life ,  iv. 
402,  n.  2. 

3  According  to  Dr.  Hall,  who  was 
elected  Master  in  1809,  the  College 
did  not  receive  all  his  works,  lb. 
i*  74 5  3* 

5  in  the  Library  there  are  many 
of  Johnson’s  manuscripts,  but  no 
literary  anecdotes. 


will 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson.  461 

will  be  most  thankfully  accepted  under  any  conditions  that  you 
are  pleased  to  prescribe.  They  shall  be  preserved  among  the  few 
MSS.  and  rarer  Books  which  are  locked  up  from  view  and  will 
greatly  enrich  this  collection.  He  tells  me  also  that  he  apprized 
you  of  a  sort  of  promise  which  he  thought  the  Doctor  had  made 
us  of  his  Picture.  But  this  is  more  than  we  have  a  right  to  say. 
We  had  indeed  formed  to  ourselves  an  expectation  of  this  kind 
which  was  grounded  wholly  on  the  following  incident.  The 
Doctor  found  in  my  Parlour  some  time  ago  a  Print  of  himself 
which  belonged  to  our  Common  Room :  under  which  I  had 
just  then  caused  to  be  written  a  Line  of  his  Favourite  Miss 
Hannah  More,  ‘And  is  not  Johnson  ours  himself  an  Host1/ 
with  which  he  seemed  well  pleased.  This  gave  occasion  to  my 
Daughter  to  whom  he  was  always  very  partial2  to  say  [piece 
torn  off]  to  have  his  Picture  in  the  Hall,  and  to  hope  that  he 
would  oblige  us  with  it.  His  answer  was  that  he  had  no  Right 
to  be  placed  among  the  Founders  and  Benefactors  of  the  College 
in  the  Hall ;  that  the  most  he  could  aspire  to  would  be  a  Place 
in  the  Lodgings,  if  the  Master  could  find  Room  for  his  Picture 
there.  This  we  were  willing  to  construe  as  an  intention  to 
comply  with  our  Wishes  and  flattered  ourselves  accordingly. 
Should  his  Executors  incline  to  put  the  same  construction  upon 
this,  and  have  it  in  their  power  to  fulfill  this  intention,  they 
would  confer  the  highest  obligation  upon  us.  It  would  indeed 
be  a  singular  pleasure  and  matter  of  useful  Reflection  to  have 
his  Portrait  always  before  us  as  the  Memorial  of  one  who 
excelled  in  every  Virtue  and  was  so  great  an  Ornament  to  the 
College3.  The  Doctor’s  last  visit  was  I  believe  to  this  College. 


1  Ante ,  ii.  199. 

2  ‘  She  happened  to  tell  him  that 
a  little  coffee-pot,  in  which  she  had 
made  his  coffee,  was  the  only  thing 
she  could  call  her  own.  He  turned 
to  her  with  a  complacent  gallantry  : — 
“  Don’t  say  so,  my  dear  :  I  hope  you 
don’t  reckon  my  heart  as  nothing.”  ’ 
Life,  iv.  292. 

3  His  portrait  by  Reynolds,  the 
gift  of  the  late  Mr.  Andrew  Spottis- 


woode,  hangs  in  the  Common  Room. 
A  copy  of  the  portrait  of  him  by 
Reynolds  in  the  National  Gallery, 
taken  by  Miss  Leveson,  the  daughter 
of  the  Scribe  of  the  Johnson  Club, 
and  given  by  her  to  the  College, 
hangs  in  the  hall.  There  also  is  to  be 
seen  a  copy  of  a  portrait  of  Dr.  Adams; 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  some  day 
it  will  be  replaced  by  the  original 
picture. 


We 


462 


Letters  of  Dr.  Johnson . 


We  had  much  serious  Talk  together  during  the  few  days  that  he 
staid  with  me:  for  which  I  ought  to  be  the  better  as  long  as 
I  live  *.  He  took  a  most  affecting  Leave  of  me,  still  saying  that 
he  would  come  again  soon. 

I  am,  dear  sir,  with  the  most  perfect  Esteem, 

Your  affectionate 

and  obedient  Servant, 

W.  Adams. 

To  Dr.  Scott  at  Doctors  Commons. 

1  He  used  the  same  words  in  a  letter  to  Boswell  written  a  few  days  later. 
Life ,  iv.  376. 


ADDENDA 


ADDENDA 


{ Vol.  i.  285.) 

For  a  criticism,  most  likely  by  Malone,  of  Mrs.  Piozzi’s  anecdote  of 
the  dinner  at  a  nobleman’s  house,  see  Life,  iv.  343. 

{Vol.  i.  327.) 

Swift’s  hatred  of  the  world  and  love  of  certain  individuals,  to  which 
Johnson  refers,  was  expressed  in  a  letter  to  Pope,  dated  September  29, 
1725,  in  which  he  says:  ‘I  have  ever  hated  all  nations,  professions, 
and  communities ;  and  all  my  love  is  towards  individuals ;  for  instance, 
I  hate  the  tribe  of  lawyers,  but  I  love  Counsellor  such  a  one  and  Judge 
such  a  one.  It  is  so  with  physicians  (I  will  not  speak  of  my  own  trade), 
soldiers,  English,  Scotch,  French,  and  the  rest.  But  principally  I  hate 
and  detest  that  animal  called  man,  although  I  heartily  love  John,  Peter, 
Thomas,  and  so  forth.’  Swift’s  Works ,  ed.  1803,  xvii.  211. 

{Vol.  i.  342.) 

Mr.  R.  B.  Adam,  of  Buffalo,  has  in  his  collection  three  impressions 
of  J.  Heath’s  engraving  of  the  first  portrait  of  Johnson  painted  by 
Reynolds.  ‘  I  found,’  writes  Boswell,  ‘  that  I  had  a  very  perfect  idea  of 
Johnson’s  figure  from  the  portrait  of  him  painted  by  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds  soon  after  he  had  published  his  Dictionary ,  in  the  attitude 
of  sitting  in  his  easy  chair  in  deep  meditation,  which  was  the  first 
picture  his  friend  did  for  him,  which  Sir  Joshua  very  kindly  presented 
to  me,  and  from  which  an  engraving  has  been  made  for  this  work.’ 
Life ,  i.  392.  See  also  ib.  iv.  422  n. 

The  last  of  the  three  impressions  is  of  the  engraving  as  it  was 
published.  On  the  margins  of  the  first  and  second  are  the  following 
inscriptions  in  Boswell’s  handwriting : — 

H  h 


VOL.  II. 


466 


Addenda. 


i. 

‘  This  is  the  first  impression  of  the  Plate  after  Mr.  Heath  the  Engraver 
thought  it  was  finished.  He  went  with  me  to  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s,  who 
suggested  that  the  countenance  was  too  young  and  not  thoughtful  enough. 
Mr.  Heath  therefore  altered  it  so  much  to  its  advantage  that  Sir  Joshua  was 
quite  satisfied,  and  Heath  then  saw  such  a  difference  that  he  said  he  would 
not  for  a  thousand  pounds  have  had  it  remain  as  it  was.’ 

II. 

‘  Second  Impression  of  Dr.  Johnson’s  Portrait  after  the  Plate  had  been 
improved  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds’s  suggestions.  Mr.  Heath  afterwards  gave 
it  a  few  additional  touches.’ 

Among  other  treasures  Mr.  Adam  has  a  copy  of  the  fifth  edition  of 
Goldsmith’s  Traveller ,  with  the  following  inscription  on  the  title-page 
in  Boswell’s  handwriting  : — 

‘  In  Spring  1773  Dr.  Johnson  at  my  desire  marked  with  a  pencil  the  lines 
in  this  admirable  poem  which  he  furnished,  viz.  1.  18  on  p.  23,  and  from  the 
3  line  on  the  last  page  to  the  end  except  the  last  couplet  but  one.  These 
(he  said)  are  all  of  which  I  can  be  sure.’  See  Life ,  ii.  6  ;  ante ,  ii.  223. 

(  Vol.  i.  419,  n.  2.) 

The  contempt  which  Johnson  showed  for  George  Ill’s  mental  power 
was  expressed  also  by  him  at  Edinburgh,  if  we  could  trust  the  following 
passage  in  The  Jacobite  Lairds  of  Gash,  by  J.  L.  Kington  Oliphant, 
1870,  p.  377  1 :  ‘Bishop  Forbes,  nonjuror  rogue,  is  writing,  “You  know 
the  famous  Dr.  Johnson  has  been  among  us;  several  anecdotes  could 
I  give  you  of  him,  but  one  is  most  singular.  Dining  one  day  at  the 
table  of  one  of  the  Lords  of  Session,  the  company  stumbled  upon 
characters,  particularly,  it  would  appear,  of  kings.  ‘Well,  well,’  said 
the  bluff  Doctor,  ‘  George  the  First  was  a  robber,  George  the  Second 
a  fool,  and  George  the  Third  is  an  idiot.’  How  the  company  stared 
I  leave  you  to  judge ;  it  was  far  from  being  polite,  especially  considering 
the  table  at  which  he  was  entertained,  and  that  he  himself  is  a  pensioner 
at  £500  [£300]  a  year.”’ 

The  only  Lord  of  Session  at  whose  house  Johnson  dined  was  Lord 
Hailes.  Of  this  dinner  Boswell  records:  ‘We  spent  a  most  agreeable 
day ;  but  again  I  must  lament  that  I  was  so  indolent  as  to  let  almost  all 
that  passed  evaporate  into  oblivion.’  Many  years  later  Hailes  sent  him 
‘  what  he  could  recollect,’  which  was  next  to  nothing.  ‘  Was  it  upon 
that  occasion  (he  wrote),  that  Johnson  expressed  no  curiosity  to  see  the 
room  at  Dumfermline,  where  Charles  I  was  born ?  “I  know  that  he 
was  bom  (said  he) ;  no  matter  where.”  Did  he  envy  us  the  birth-place 
of  the  King?’  Life ,  v.  398. 

1  This  passage  was  shown  me  by  Mr.  W.  Keith  Leask,  who  came  across  it  when 
writing  The  Life  of  Boswell . 


Addenda. 


467 


Lord  Hailes’s  recollection,  if  he  is  right  as  to  the  occasion  when  this 
talk  took  place,  certainly  tends  to  confirm  one  part  of  Forbes’s  anecdote — 
the  company  did  stumble  upon  kings.  Nevertheless,  I  doubt  much  the 
story.  In  the  first  place,  Forbes,  it  is  clear,  was  not  at  the  dinner 
himself.  Whatever  was  said  reached  him  second-hand.  A  nonjuror 
would  eagerly  catch  at  any  report  against  a  Hanoverian  King.  His 
‘willingness  to  believe’  he  would  easily  have  ‘advanced  to  conviction.’ 
The  stories  told  in  Scotland  against  Johnson  required  sifting.  They 
were  often  set  afloat  by  those  whose  national  pride  he  had  offended  by 
his  wit.  In  the  second  place,  had  Johnson  called  the  Great  Per- 
sonage  an  idiot,  there  would  have  been,  as  regards  this  one  utterance, 
no  ‘  evaporation  into  oblivion  ’  on  Boswell’s  part.  He  might,  indeed, 
have  suppressed  the  word  ‘  idiot,’  as  he  suppressed  the  words  used  by 
his  ‘  honoured  father  ’  and  his  ‘  respected  friend  ’  when  as  ‘  intellectual 
gladiators  ’  they  contended  in  the  library  at  Auchinleck ;  that  there  was 
a  suppression  he  would  certainly  have  let  his  readers  know.  He  would 
have  lamented  that  from  ‘the  spirit  of  contradiction,’  no  longer 
‘  tempered  by  the  reverential  awe  ’  which  had  been  felt  in  the  interview 
with  the  King,  the  great  moralist  ‘  had  grown  so  outrageous  ’  as  to  apply  to 
his  Majesty  a  term  ‘  which  it  would  be  very  unbecoming  in  me  to  report.’ 
Johnson  spoke  roughly  enough,  no  doubt,  of  the  first  two  Hanoverian 
Kings.  ‘  George  the  First  (he  said),  knew  nothing,  and  desired  to  know 
nothing ;  did  nothing,  and  desired  to  do  nothing.  .  .  .  He  roared  with 
prodigious  violence  against  George  the  Second.’  Life ,  ii.  342.  Even 
after  the  third  George  had  been  two-and-twenty  years  on  the  throne  he 
said  to  Boswell,  having  first  lowered  his  voice,  ‘Sir,  this  Hanoverian 
family  is  isolee  here.’  Ib.  iv.  165.  Nevertheless,  of  the  King  personally, 
so  far  as  his  biographers  show,  he  always  spoke  with  respect.  ‘  Sir,’  he 
said,  ‘they  may  talk  of  the  King  as  they  will;  but  he  is  the  finest 
gentleman  I  have  ever  seen.’  Ib.  ii.  40. 

My  disbelief  of  Forbes’s  anecdote,  however,  is  based,  not  so  much  on 
the  improbability  of  Johnson  calling  George  III  an  idiot,  as  on  the 
impossibility  of  Boswell  passing  over  such  an  outburst  in  silence. 

( Vol.  ii.  43.) 

Dr.  Thomas  Campbell,  in  his  account  on  this  page  of  a  dinner  at 
Mr. Thrale’s  in  March,  1775,  says  that  ‘the  two  first  courses  were  served 
in  massy  plate.’  The  abundance  of  the  plate  in  this  house,  which  the 
kindness  of  its  master  and  mistress  ‘allowed  Johnson  to  call  his  home’ 

( Letters ,  i.  129),  is  shown  in  the  Sale  Catalogue  of  Mrs.  Piozzi’s  Library, 

H  h  3 


468 


Addenda . 


Curiosities,  &c.,  a  copy  of  which  has  been  lent  me  by  my  friend, 
Mr.  T.  Fisher  Unwin.  Among  the  three  thousand  ounces  of  silver 
sold  was  a  ‘  truly  magnificent  service  of  one  pattern,’  consisting  of  thirty- 
four  dishes  and  sixty-six  plates.  The  sale  was  held  at  Manchester,  in 
September,  1823,  and  lasted  six  days.  Among  the  lots  were  the 
following  Johnsonian  relics  : — 

‘Lot  430.  Auctores  Classici — Sallustius,  Horatius  et  Terentius.  3  tom. 
8vo.  Dub.  1747.  On  the  first  leaf  is  written  :  “Given  by  Dr.  John¬ 
son  to  H.  L.  Thrale,  1770.” 

‘645.  A  few  interesting  Original  letters  (some  in  French)  [Letters,  i.  150, 
324]  in  the  handwriting  of  Dr.  Johnson. 

‘649.  “Johnson’s  Padlock,  committed  to  my  care  in  the  year  1768.” 

‘  650.  The  Grant  of  the  Freedom  of  Aberdeen  to  Samuel  Johnson,  LL.D.,  on 
parchment,  with  a  red  ribbon  and  wax  seal  [Life,  v.  90 ;  Letters ,  i.  233]. 

‘716.  A  Small  Red  Morocco  Pocket-Book,  with  a  medical  receipt  in 
Dr.  Johnson’s  own  handwriting,  with  massive  metal  gilt  ornaments 
round  the  sides,  and  lock  and  key,  ivory  leaves  inside,  and  denomi¬ 
nated  in  Mrs.  P.’s  own  writing,  “The  Pocket  Book  of  Doctor 
Johnson.’” 

On  the  fly-leaf  of  this  catalogue  a  former  owner,  James  Taylor,  ‘an 
antiquarian  bookseller,’  has  recorded  that  at  the  sale  of  ‘Mr.  Webster’s 
Library  at  Mr.  Evans’s,’  in  April,  1826,  £3  15^.  was  given  for  a  copy  of 
‘  Boswell’s  Life  of  Johnson,  4  vols.,  1816,  in  the  most  beautiful  condition, 
\  bound  russia,  top  edges  gilt  and  front  edges  uncut,  with  numerous 
manuscript  notes  written  in  the  margin  by  Mrs.  Piozzi.’ 

(Vo/,  ii.  51.) 

Johnson’s  doubt  whether  a  tree  could  be  found  in  Scotland  for  him 
to  be  hanged  on  finds  some  justification  in  the  following  passage  in 
J.  H.  Burton’s  History  of  Scotland,  ed.  1867,  iv.  198,  to  which  my 
attention  has  been  drawn  by  Mr.  Leask.  The  historian,  describing 
a  raid  to  the  Borders  by  the  Earl  of  Murray,  Queen  Mary’s  brother, 
to  put  down  the  disturbances  there,  says  that  fifty-three  outlaws  were 
taken,  of  whom  eighteen  were  drowned  ‘  for  lack  of  trees  and  halters.’ 

(Vo/,  ii.  79.) 

I  have  lately  seen  in  a  second-hand  bookseller’s  catalogue  the 
following  extract  from  a  letter  by  Johnson  dated  April  30,  1774,  ad¬ 
dressed  to  ‘The  Rev.  Dr.  Horne,  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford’:  ‘The 
Life  of  Walton  has  happily  fallen  into  good  hands.  Sir  John  Hawkins 
has  prefixed  it  to  the  late  edition  of  the  Angler,  very  diligently  collected 
and  very  elegantly  composed.’  Horne  in  this  same  year,  Boswell 
writes,  *  had  talked  of  publishing  an  edition  of  Walton’s  Lives,  but  had 
laid  aside  that  design  upon  Dr.  Johnson’s  telling  him,  from  mistake, 
that  Lord  Hailes  intended  to  do  it.’  Life ,  ii.  279,  283,  445. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Aberdeen,  fourth  Earl  of,  i.  366  n., 
430  n. 

Abington,  Mrs.,  i.  196  n. ;  ii.  49,  318  n. 
Academy ,  i.  367  n. 

Academy  of  Literature,  i.  435. 
Accoucheur,  i.  129  n. 

Accounts,  i.  32. 

Acland,  Sir  T.,  ii.  207. 

Acquaintance ,  i.  347  n. 

Act ,  i.  76  n. 

Actors,  i.  457  ;  ii.  241  n.,  248. 

Adam,  Robert  B.,  i.  87  n.,  232  n. ;  ii.  29  n., 
439 n.,  440«.,  442^.,  451  n.,  460 n.,  465. 
Adams,  President  John,  ii.  2  n. 

Adams,  Rev.  William,  D.D.,  answers 
Hume,  ii.  437;  death  of  his  wife,  ii. 
203  n •  >  Johnson’s  College  days,  i.  164, 
362-3  ;  —  Dictionary ,  i.  183  n. ;  —  his 
guest,  i.  1  i6n. ;  ii.  198, 202 ;  —  Prayers, 

i.  4, 1 19  n. ;  —  pride,  ii.  93  n. ;  letter  to 
Dr.  Scott,  ii.  460 ;  mentioned,  i.  439 ; 

ii.  133  n. 

Adams,  Mrs.,  ii.  202  n. 

Adams,  Miss,  ii.  461. 

Addison,  Joseph,  Aristotle,  ii.  62  ; 
attacks,  i.  271  n. ;  Battle  of  the  Cranes , 
ii.  314;  beggars,  i.  204  n. ;  Bunyan, 
i.  332  n. ;  Busby,  ii.  304  n. ;  Button’s 
coffee-house,  i.  434  n. ;  cant  of  sensi¬ 
bility,  i.  161  n. ;  Cato,  i.  284  n.,  401, 
462,  473;  ii.  13,  415;  chaplains,  i. 
364  n. ;  Christianity,  defence  of,  i. 
81  n. ;  conge  d’elire,  ii.  328  n. ;  critic, 
i.  469;  dessert,  i.  no  n. ;  drinking,  ii. 
336 ;  flying,  ii.  396  n. ;  Hammond, 
Dr.,  i.  107  n. ;  Hottentot,  i.  384  n. ; 
hymn,  ii.  393 ;  invention,  ii.  73  n. ; 
Latin  poems,  i.  459 ;  longitude,  i. 
402  n. ;  Lucan,  i.  152  n. ;  Milton, 

i.  483  n.;  More,  Hannah,  ii.  179  n. ; 
*  rattling  through  polysyllables,’  ii. 
352  ;  Spectator,  i.  392  ;  Steele,  loan  to, 

ii.  3  n.;  Strada,  i.  366  n. ;  ii.  359  n.; 


style,  i.  233,  283,  466-70  ;  Tickell’s 
Homer,  i.  482  ;  ‘  wits  of  King  Charles’s 
time,’  i.  385  n. ;  wives,  ii.  11  n;  wrote 
for  money,  ii.  91  n. 

Adventurer ,  i.  166  n.,  403,  470  ;  ii.  187, 
351- 

Advertisement,  ii.  29  n. 

Advertisements,  ii.  454. 

Advice,  i.  206. 

Akenside,  Mark,  i.  452  n.  ;  ii.  34,  327. 

Alchemy,  i.  306  n. 

Alembert,  i.  212  n.,  365,434. 

Allen,  Edmund,  i.  98,  100,  106,  438, 
444  ;  ii.  1 1 9. 

Allen,  Ralph,  ii.  15  n. 

Allen,  Rev.  Mr.,  ii.  7  n.,  451. 

Allen,  — ,  of  Magdalen  Hall,  ii.  125  n. 

Almost  nothing,  i.  88. 

Alms-giving,  i.  204  ;  ii.  393,  416. 

Altar,  i.  65  n. 

Ambassadors,  foreign,  ii.  no  n. 

America,  Burke’s  speeches,  i.  173  ;  ii. 
23  n.;  Johnson,  Taxation  no  Tyranny, 
i.  426  ;  —  not  admired  there,  ii.  51  ; 
—  violence,  ii.  53,  55-7  ;  Provincial 
Assemblies,  ii.  47  ;  Scottish  settlers,  ii. 
403;  war,  i.  112  n. ;  ii.  307,  424. 

Amusements,  see  Pleasures. 

Anabaptists,  ii.  388  n. 

Anacreon,  i.  176. 

Anderson,  John  P.,  i.  404  n. 

Anderson,  Dr.  Robert,  ii.  208. 

Andrews,  Rev.  C.  G.,  ii.  399  n. 

Angel,  i.  133  n. 

Annals,  i.  12  5- 140. 

Anne,  Queen,  i.  133,  152,  360;  ii.  338. 

Annihilation,  i.  101  n. 

Anson,  Lord,  i.  195,  402. 

Anti-Jacobhi ,  ii.  207  n. 

Apollonius,  i.  69. 

Appose ,  ii.  118. 

Araucana,  ii.  441. 

Arbuthnot,  John,  M.D.,  Johnson’s 


472 


Index. 


Arbuthnot,  John . Baretti,  Joseph. 


Messiah ,  i.  370 ;  money-scriveners,  ii. 
324  n.  ;  Pope  and  music,  ii.  103  n. ; 
Swift’s  physician,  i.  223  n. ;  Tale  of  a 
Tub,  i.  374  n. 

Archer-Hind,  Mrs.,  ii.  446  n. 

Argument,  ii.  409. 

Argyle,  Duchess  of,  ii.  261  n. 

Ariosto,  ii.  366,  381. 

Aristotle,  i.  419  ;  ii.  62. 

Arithmetic,  i.  281,  295,  301. 

Arkwright,  Sir  Richard,  ii.  325. 

Armagh,  Archbishop  of,  ii.  52-3. 

Arne,  Dr.,  i.  197  n. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  English  Academy, 
i.  437  n. ;  French  literature,  ii.  289  n. 

Arnold,  — ,  ii.  393. 

Art,  works  of,  ii.  376  n. 

Ascham,  Roger,  gained  admirers,  ii.  371 ; 
obedience  in  old  time,  i.  162  n.  ;  pride 
of  Elizabeth’s  reign,  i.  non.;  quick 
wits,  i.  315,  414. 

Ashbourne,  i.  81,  101,  444. 

Ashton,  Dr.,  ii.  430. 

Asti.ey,  Philip,  ii.  377. 

Aston,  Catherine,  i.  254  n. 

Aston,  Elizabeth,  i.  101,  104,  106, 
206  n. ;  ii.  413. 

Aston,  Mr.  Justice,  ii.  443  n. 

Aston,  ‘Molly,’  i.  255,  257  n .,  258  ;  ii. 
17- 

Aston,  Sir  Thomas,  Bart.,  i.  101  n.} 
255  n. ;  ii.  413. 

Attacks,  i.  270,  274,  407  ;  ii.  207, 
420. 

Attention,  continuity  of,  i.  139. 

Atterbury,  Bishop,  ii.  410  n. 

Attorneys,  i.  151  n.,  327. 

Atwood,  Dr.,  i.  132. 

Auchinleck,  Lord,  ii.  270  n.,  395, 
447  467- 

Audley,  Lord  Chancellor,  ii.  1. 

Austen,  Jane,  i.  no  n. 

Authors,  attacks,  see  under  Attacks  ; 
best  part  in  their  books,  ii.  310 ;  com¬ 
plaints  of  neglect,  i.  315  n.  ;  conse¬ 
quence  and  celebrity,  ii.  227  ;  copy¬ 
right,  ii.  442  n. ;  gentlemen  writers,  i. 
334  ;  ii.  304  ;  opinion  of  the  public,  ii. 
7,  19  ;  quoting  them,  ii.  207. 

Avarice,  i.  251. 

Averroes,  i.  198  n. 


B. 

Bacon,  Francis,  argument,  ii.  409 ;  casual 
talk,  ii.  94  ;  Essays ,  Latin  version  re¬ 
translated,  i.  137  n.  ;  —  praised  by 
Burke  and  Johnson,  ii.  229  ;  extent  of 
his  writings,  ii.  302  ;  great  thinker,  ii. 
231. 

Bacon,  Roger,  ii.  325  n. 

Bailey,  Nathaniel,  ii.  95,  214  n.,  414. 
Baker,  Sir  George,  M.D.,  ii.  399  n. 
Baker,  Rev.  Thomas,  i.  421  n. 
Baldwin,  Henry,  ii.  35. 

Balk,  ii.  105  n. 

Banks,  Sir  Joseph,  i.  195,  280  n.;  ii.  26, 
32,  293. 

Banks,  — ,  of  Dorsetshire,  ii.  275. 
Bannister,  Charles,  i.  454  n. 
Barbauld,  Mrs.,  children’s  stories,  i. 
15 6  n.,  157  ;  at  Mrs.  Montagu’s,  ii. 
183  ;  Richardson,  ii.  437  n. 

Barber,  Francis,  Hawkins’  attacks,  ii.  81, 
103  ;  Johnson,  annuity  from,  i.  441  n., 
448  ;  ii.  121-6,  132,  379  ;  —  death,  ii. 
146,  155,  386  ;  —  Hodge,  i.  318  ;  — 
instructs  him,  i.  71,  90,  98,  103-4,  io7> 

—  papers,  i.  127;  —  residuary  legatee, 
ii.  445  n. ;  —  service,  enters,  i.  391  ;  — 
sided  with  him,  i.  292  ;  —  watch,  ii. 
81,  1 17  n.,  296  n. ;  —  wife,  i.  257, 
290-1 ;  Windham,  recommends  him 
to,  ii.  383  ;  ran  away,  ii.  439  ;  ‘  took 
bribes,’  ii.  329  n. ;  waiting  at  table,  ii. 
276;  mentioned,  i.  440  ;  ii.  129,  153, 
399- 

Barclay,  Robert,  author  of  The  Apology, 
ii.  389. 

Barclay,  Robert,  the  banker,  ii.  389. 
Barclay,  Robert,  the  brewer,  i.  175  n., 
238  n.,  242  n.  ;  ii.  389. 

Baretti,  Joseph,  Boswell’s  foe,  ii.  44  ; 
described  by  Campbell,  ii.  40 ;  —  by 
Mrs.  Thrale,  ii.  41  n. ;  Dialogues ,  ii. 
43  ;  Easy  Phraseology,  i.  194;  Foote, 
ii.  240  n.  ;  Irish  rebellion,  ii.  54,  57  n. ; 
Johnson  and  Mrs.  Thrale,  i.  189  n. ; 

—  and  Mrs.  Salisbury,  i.  235  n. ;  —  at 
Streatham,  i.  340  n.  ;  —  described,  ii. 
42  ;  —  wagers,  ii.  46  ;  —  talk,  ii.  254; 
—  French  tour,  ii.  286,  290-2  ;  —  no 
cordial  friendship  with  him,  ii.  292  ; 
Junius ,  ii.  41 ;  lions,  one  of  the,  ii.  52  ; 


Index. 


473 


Blair,  Rev.  Dr.  Hugh. 


Baretti,  Joseph 


portrait,  i.  342  n. ;  rudeness,  i.  453  ; 
Thrale,  flatters  Mrs.,  ii.  40  ;  tried  for 
murder,  i.  105  n. ;  ii.  44,  228  n. ;  men¬ 
tioned,  i.  257,  261  ;  ii.  49,  363. 
Barker,  Edmund,  M.D.,  i.  389. 
Barnard,  Sir  Frederick  Augusta,  i.  211. 
Barnard,  Rev.  Dr.,  Dean  of  Derry, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Killaloe,  i.  287  n. ; 
ii.  137  n.j  262. 

Barnard,  Rev.  Dr.  (Provost  of  Eton),  i. 

168,  245 ;  ii.  201  n.,  364. 

Barretier,  Philip,  ii.  339. 
Barrington,  Daines,  ii.  24,  221  n. 
Barrington,  Bishop  Shute,  ii.  198. 
Barrow,  Rev.  Isaac,  D.D.,  i.  329  n. ; 
ii.  103  n.,  189  n. 

Barrow,  Rev.  W.,  D.D.,  i.  356  n. ;  ii. 
21. 

Barry,  James,  ii.  221  n. 

Barry,  Spranger,  ii.  50. 
Bartholomew-fair,  i.  336. 

Bas  Bleu ,  ii.  58,  201. 

Bates,  Joah,  i.  197. 

Bath,  ii.  399  n.,  402. 

Bath,  Earl  of,  ii.  271,  409  n. 

Bathing,  ii.  428. 

Bathurst,  Captain,  i.  391  n. ;  ii.  439  n. 
Bathurst,  first  Earl,  i.  173. 

Bathurst,  Richard,  M.D.,  i.  29,  61,  65, 
158,  204,  205  n.,  291,  389,  390,  448  ; 
ii.  100,  439  n. 

Batt,  Thomas,  ii.  30. 

Battie,  William,  M.D.,  ii.  431. 
Baxter,  Richard,  i.  39,  41 ;  ii.  189,  222. 
Beattie,  Dr.  James,  i.  88  n .,  233  «.,  269, 

333  «•,  429  J  297  «•»  355  »• 

Beauclerk,  Topham,  descended  from 

Charles  II,  ii.  31  n. ;  Garrick’s  portrait, 

i.  265  n. ;  humour,  i.  386;  Hutchinson, 

ii.  183  n. ;  Johnson  and  the  mastiff,  i. 

224;  —  afraid  of  spirits,  i.  278  ;  —  , 
coalition  with,  i.  383  n.\  —  Irene ,  i. 
386  ;  —  portrait,  i.  459  n.  ;  ii.  9 ; 
Literary  Club,  i.  230, 420;  talk,  i.  273, 
469  ;  ii.  265  ;  wife,  i.  222  n.  ;  men¬ 
tioned,  i.  351  ;  ii.  245  260  n. 

Beaumont,  Sir  George,  ii.  232  n. 
Beauties ,  ii.  2. 

Becket,  T.,  ii.  21 1  n. 

Beckford,  Alderman,  i.  211  n. ;  ii. 
302  n. 


Bedford,  fourth  Duke  of,  i.  252  n. 
Bedgown ,  i.  30  n. 

Behaviour,  i.  161. 

Belace ,  ii.  95  n. 

Bell,  Jane,  i.  239  n. 

Bell,  printer,  ii.  36. 

Benedictines,  i.  210. 

Benserade,  Isaac  de,  i.  195. 

Bentham,  Jeremy,  mother’s  death,  i. 
22  n.;  ‘tipped’  by  Cox,  i.  105  n. ; 
Bishop  Horsley,  i.  106  n.  ;  Streatham, 

i.  109  n.  ;  lace,  i.  253  n. ;  Lord  Cam¬ 
den,  ii.  63  n .;  Hawkins,  ii.  80  ;  Hoole, 

ii.  200  n. ;  estimate  of  character,  ib. ; 
Dean  Barnard,  ii.  263  n.  ;  Oxford,  ii. 
313  n. ;  Ellis  the  scrivener,  ii.  324  n. 

Bentley,  Rev.  Richard,  D.D.,  attacked 
by  Swift,  ii.  377  ;  attended  by  Heber- 
den,  ii.  154#.;  King’s  Librarian,  ii. 
362  ;  learning,  ii.  9,  142  ;  like  an  old 
trunk,  ii.  229  n.\  studied  hard,  i.  181  n. ; 
ii.  214  n.\  undergraduates  of  Trinity, 
ii.  313  n. 

Berlin ,  ii.  441. 

Bernard,  Dr.,  ii.  400. 

Berni,  i.  269. 

Berrenger,  Richard,  i.  254;  ii.  187, 

193  »• 

Berry,  Miss,  i.  356  n. ;  ii.  424  n. 

Best,  H.  D.,  ii.  23  n.,  390. 

Betterton,  Thomas,  ii.  242  n. 
Beveridge,  Bishop,  ii.  429. 

Beza,  i.  394. 

Bickerstaff,  Isaac,  i.  262  ;  ii.  324  n. 

1  Big  Ben,’  i.  475. 

Bigelow,  E.  L.,  ii.  26  n. 

Binckes,  Prebendary,  ii.  410  n. 

Birch,  Deputy,  ii.  36. 

Birch,  Rev.  Thomas,  D.D.,  ii.  365  n. 
Birmingham,  i.  139,  364  ;  ii.  410  n. 
Blackburne,  Archdeacon,  i.  398  n. 
Blackmore,  Sir  Richard,  ii.  314. 
Blackstone,  Sir  William,  madmen,  i. 
320  n. ;  Addison  and  Pope,  i.  482  ; 
libels,  ii.  35  n. ;  Conge  d’elire,  ii. 
328  n. ;  copyright,  ii.  443  n.  ;  society, 
ii.  444  n. 

Blackwall,  Anthony,  ii.  340. 
Blagden,  Dr.  (Sir  Charles),  ii.  24,  26, 
30. 

Blair,  Rev.  Dr.  Hugh,  ii.  350  n. 


474 


Index . 


Blake,  William . Boswell,  James. 


Blake,  William,  ii.  164  n. 

Blakeston,  Rev.  H.  E.  D.,  i.  69  n. 
Blockhead,  ii.  270  n. 

Blue  Stocking  Club,  ii.  59. 

Boase,  Rev.  C.  W.,  ii.  334  n. 

Boase,  George  C.,  i.  475  n. 

Bobwig ,  ii.  75. 

Bocage,  Madame  du,  ii.  290. 

Boileau,  father,  i.  155,  361  ;  Jesuits,  ii. 
200  ;  Johnson’s  delight  in  him,  i.  334, 
416 ;  —  did  not  borrow  from  him,  ii. 
372  ;  Malherbe,  i.  466  n. ;  modern 
Latin,  i.  365. 

Bolingbroke,  Lady,  ii.  8  n. 
Bolingbroke,  first  Viscount,  recommends 
Prince  of  Wales’s  preceptor,  i.  180  n. ; 
‘scoundrel,’  i.  21 1  n .,  408;  ii.  315; 
quoted,  i.  487  ;  Middleton’s  Cicero ,  ii.  8. 
Bolingbroke,  second  Viscount,  i.  222. 
Bonaventura,  i.  36. 

Bonstetten,  — ,  i.  1 91  n. 

Books,  why  invented,  i.  206 ;  the  art  of 
living,  i.  324 ;  too  long,  i.  332  ; 
written  without  effort,  ii.  309 ;  in  one’s 
pocket,  ii.  31 1 ;  payments  for,  ii.  349. 
Booksellers,  ii.  106,  125  n.,  162  n., 
443  »• 

Boothby,  Sir  Brooke,  ii.  391. 

Boothby,  Hill,  i.  18,  65,  177  n .,  178  n., 
256  n.,  257;  ii.  391. 

Boscawen,  Hon.  Mrs.,  ii.  181,  186-7, 
192  n.,  195. 

Boscovitch,  i.  416. 

Bossu,  ii.  372. 

Boswell,  Sir  Alexander,  ii.  31  n. 
Boswell,  David,  ii.  27. 

Boswell,  Dr.,  i.  25  n. 

Boswell,  James,  Addison’s  style,  i. 
470  n. ;  Ashbourne,  ii.  447  ;  Baretti’s 
foe,  ii.  44 ;  beauties  of  nature,  ii. 
210  n. ;  Blackmore’s  lines,  ii.  314; 
Burke  easy  with  him,  ii.  25  ;  chambers 
in  the  Temple,  ii.  38  ;  chap-books,  i. 
156  n. ;  Chatham,  Lord,  ii.  206  n. ; 
Christianity,  i.  81  n. ;  Davies’s  dinner, 
ii.  61 ;  debts,  i.  251  n. ;  ii.  26,  33,  35  ; 
described  by  Horace  Walpole,  i.  143  ; 

—  in  the  European  Magazine,  ii.  394  ; 

—  by  Dugald  Stewart,  ii.  42  5  ;  Esquire, 
ii.  36;  Essex  Head  Club,  ii.  221; 
Eton  College,  ii.  364  n.\  Government 


of  the  Tongue ,  i.  87  n. ;  Hawkins,  i. 
357  n.,  440  n.;  ii.  101  n.,  130,  135  n., 
144;  impatience,  i.  263  nr,  inaccuracy, 

i.  257  n. ;  Johnson,  America,  ii.  55  n. ; 

—  attacks  him,  ii.  230  n. ;  —  at  Bristol, 

ii.  185  n. ;  —  character  drawing,  ii. 
270  n. ;  —  diary,  i.  14  n. ;  —  dinner  at 
Dilly’s,  ii.  47-8,  403  ;  —  dinner-table, 
ii.  11 6n.;  —  Easter,  i.  59  n.,  61-2, 
66,  71,  74,  83,  85,  87,  98  ;  ii.  194  n. ; 

—  eating,  ii.  278  n. ;  —  fond  of  him, 
ii.  49;  —  freewill,  ii.  233  n. ;  — 
funeral,  ii.  137  n.\  —  Garrick’s  fame, 
ii.  244  n. ;  —  Hawkins,  ii.  81  ;  — 
health,  ii.  457  ;  humour,  ii.  98  n. ;  — , 
imitates,  ii.  195 ;  — ,  incites  to  talk, 
ii.  47  n.,  52  ;  — ,  introduced  to,  i. 
428  ;  ii.  15  n.y  46,  63  n. ;  —  Italy,  pro¬ 
posed  tour,  i.  441 ;  ii.  459 ;  —  lemons, 
ii.  100  n. ;  —  letters,  ii.  363  n. ;  — 
Life ,  i.  165  n .,  325  n. ;  ii.  22,  26-30, 
32-8,  74,  206,  294-6,  395,  408,  437  n.; 
cancels  in  it,  ii.  29  ;  Russian  translation, 
ii.  147  n. ;  —  offered  a  shilling,  ii. 
269;  —  Oglethorpe,  ii.  51;  —  Paoli, 
ii.  374  ;  —  portrait,  ii.  274  n.,  465  ;  — 
pronunciation,  ii.  375  n.\  — ,  questions, 
ii.  52  ;  —  rebukes  swearing,  ii.  18  n. ; 

—  reproaches  his  inattention,  ii.  374 ; 
— ,  ‘spy  on,’  i.  358  n.  ;  ii.  45 ;  — 
style,  i.  466  n. ;  —  tour  to  Hebrides, 
i.  427,  430 ;  — works  of  art,  ii.  376  n. ; 

—  Wilkes,  ii.  374  n. ;  law,  knowledge 
of,  ii.  395 ;  Letter  on  the  State  of  the 
Nation ,  ii.  458 ;  Literary  Club,  i. 
229  n.\  lottery  ticket,  ii.  31;  Mason’s 
poems,  i.  169  n. ;  melancholy,  ii.  33, 
36,  38;  More,  Hannah,  ii.  187-8; 
note-book,  i.  153  n.,  175  n.f  369  n.;  ii. 
84  n.,  86  n.y  262  n.,  389;  Oxford,  ii. 
202,  406;  Percy,  criticized  by,  ii. 
209,  211,  214,  216  n.y  218  n. ;  Piozzi, 
Mrs.,  see  under  Thrale  ;  prayers  for 
the  dead,  i.  14  n. ;  Priestley,  i.  463  n. ; 
Reynolds’s  bequest,  ii.  24  n. ;  —  , 
letter  to,  ii.  457  ;  —  letter  from,  ii. 
460;  Reynolds,  Miss,  ii.  250;  rural 
beauties,  i.  323  n.\  Scotland,  ii.  45, 
226  n. ;  spelling  of  his  name,  ii. 
447  n. ;  talk,  ii.  235  n.;  Traveller,  \\. 
466;  troublesome  kindness,  i.  n.; 


Index . 


475 


Boswell,  James . Burke,  Edmund. 


vows,  i.  299  n.\  wine,  i.  321;  ii.  21, 
36, 44, 193  n.,  194 ;  witches  in  Macbeth , 
ii.  180. 

Boswell,  James,  junior,  i.  356  n. ;  ii. 
21  «.,  274  n. 

Bosworth,  i.  6,  364 ;  ii.  340  n. 

Bottle ,  i.  473  n. 

Boucher,  Rev.  John,  ii.  22  n. 

Boucher,  Rev.  Jonathan,  D.D.,  i.  6  n. 
Boufflers,  Madame  de,  ii.  180  n. 
Boulter,  Archbishop,  ii.  267. 

Bourdon,  Sebastian,  ii.  232  n. 

Bower,  Archibald,  i.  397. 

Bowyer,  William,  i.  444. 

Boyle,  Hon.  Robert,  ii.  48,  409  n. 
Boyse,  Samuel,  i.  228;  ii.  41 1. 

Bradley,  James,  i.  402. 

Braganza,  ii.  46,  182. 

Braithwaite,  — ,  ii.  160. 

Breeding,  i.  254. 

Brent,  Charlotte,  i.  197. 

Brentford,  i.  322. 

Bridgewater,  Earl  of,  i.  147  n. 
Brighthelmstone  (Brighton),  i.  52 
109  n.,  224,  242  n.,  245,  323. 

Bristol,  first  Earl  of,  i.  135  n. 

British  Coffee  House,  ii.  39. 

British  Museum,  i.  289  n. 
Brocklesby,  Richard,  M.D.,  i.  88  n., 
hi,  217  «.,  439-40,  443-5,  448  n.; 
ii.  7».,  29,  122,  125,  131,  136,  149, 
152  n.,  156  ».,  159,  205,  221  n.,  323  n., 
335  »•»  368,  386-8,  398. 

Brodie,  Captain,  i.  255  n. 

Bromfield,  Robert,  M.D.,  i.  106. 
Brooke,  Frances,  i.  322;  ii.  192,  390. 
Brooke,  Francis,  i.  47  n. 

Brooke,  Henry,  i.  193  n.,  375. 

Brooke,  Rev.  John,  D.D.,  i.  322  n. 
Broome,  William,  i.  155. 

Brougham,  Lord,  i.  230  n. 

Broughton,  Elizabeth,  i.  449  n. 
Broughton,  John,  i.  449  n. 

Brown,  John  Douglass,  jun.,  ii.  425. 
Brown,  Tom,  i.  157  n. 

Browne,  Isaac  Hawkins,  i.  266;  ii.  10, 
341- 

Browne,  Rev.  Moses,  i.  284 n.  ;  ii.  88  n. 
Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  i.  467  ;  ii.  351. 
Browne,  Sir  William,  M.D.,  i.  170. 
Bruce,  Captain  and  Mrs.,  ii.  333. 


Bruce,  James,  i.  365  n. ;  ii.  12,  368. 
Brumoy,  i.  481. 

Brutus,  i.  486. 

Bruy£re,  La,  i.  334,  416. 

Bryce,  Right  Hon.  James,  ii.  287  n. 
Buchan,  Earl  of,  ii.  206  n. 

Buchanan,  George,  i.  445;  ii.  15,  48, 
123,  380. 

Buckinger,  Matthew,  i.  188,  419. 
Buckingham,  George  Villiers,  second 
Duke  of,  i.  185. 

Buckingham  House,  i.  425;  ii.  118. 
Buckle,  Henry  Thomas,  ii.  424. 

Bud  worth,  — ,  i.  366. 

Buffon,  ii.  391  n. 

Bun  bury,  Sir  Charles,  ii.  30. 

Bunbury,  H.  W.,  ii.  30  n. 

Bunbury  family,  ii.  187. 

Bunyan,  John,  Pilgrim's  Progress ,  i. 
332>  385  n-’>  ii-  65  n.,  406;  copy¬ 
right,  ii.  442  n. 

Burdonum  Fabulae  Confutation  i.  69. 
Burgess,  Rev.  Daniel,  ii.  370. 
Burgoyne,  General,  ii.  26. 

Burke,  Edmund,  alms-giving,  ii.  416  n.; 
America,  i.  173,  401  n.\  ii.  186  n., 
357;  Bacon’s  Essays ,  ii.  229;  bag,  in 
a,  i.  309 ;  Baretti’s  trial,  i.  105  n. ;  ii. 
228  n. ;  Barnard’s  lines,  ii.  265;  Bos¬ 
well,  easy  with,  ii.  25 ;  —  good 
humour,  ii.  395  ;  Bunyan,  i.  333  n. ; 
‘  cashiering  kings,’  i.  429  n. ;  conversa¬ 
tion,  ii.  220  n. ;  extraordinary  man, 

i.  290,  421  ;  French  Revolution,  ii.  23, 
25;  funeral,  ii.  379  n. ;  Gibbon,  ii. 
233  n.  ;  Goldsmith,  i.  422  n. ;  Haw¬ 
kins,  attacked  by,  i.  389  n.,  420  n. ; 
Johnson  in  Boswell’s  Life ,  ii.  220  n. ; 
—  Messiah ,  i.  460  n. ;  —  as  a  speaker, 

ii.  362  n. ;  —  visits  him,  i.  309  ;  — 
Western  Islands ,  ii.  6,  368  n.;  —  wishes 
him  success,  ii.  393  n. ;  Junius,  i. 
172  n. ;  ii.  41;  libels,  i.  275  n.\ 
Literary  Club,  i.  229  n.,  420;  ii.  32, 
63;  Low  Dutch,  ii.  154  n. ;  luxury, 
ii.  97  n. ;  Malone’s  Shakespeare ,  ii. 
24-5;  metaphors,  i.  174  n. ;  Montagu, 
Mrs.,  ii.  272  ;  mutual friend,  ii.  219  n.; 
Oracle ,  lines  in  the,  ii.  36 ;  portrait, 
i.  342  n. ;  Reynolds’s  bequest,  ii.  24 

rude  in  dispute,  ii.  23  n.\  Scotch, 


476 


Index. 


Burke,  Edmund . Carlisle,  seventh  Earl  of. 


decried  by  the,  ii.  39 ;  Thurlow,  Lord, 
ii.  388;  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  ii. 
21 1  n.;  mentioned,  i.  37  n.,  214  n.;  ii. 
J79  n->  24°,  245  n.,  248  n.,  369  n.,  386. 
Burke,  Richard,  senior,  ii.  42,  64,  263  n. 
Burke,  Richard,  junior,  ii.  24,  26,  32, 

388.  . . 

Burke,  William,  i.  389  n. 

Burlamaqui,  i.  419. 

Burlington,  Earl  of,  ii.  95  n. 

Burnet,  Gilbert,  Bishop  of  Salisbury, 

i.  415  n. ;  ii.  118  n. 

Burney,  Dr.  Charles,  Hastings,  Warren, 

ii.  22  n.\  History  of  Music,  i.  191  ;  ii. 
286,  303 ;  Johnson’s  contradiction,  i. 
244;  —  death,  ii.  158,  303,  388;  — 
late  hours,  i.  232  n. ;  —  study,  ii. 
2  59  n' ;  portrait,  i.  342  n. ;  Proba¬ 
tionary  Odes ,  ii.  36  n. ;  Smart,  assists, 
i.  320  n. 

Burney,  Dr.  Charles  (junior),  ii.  196  n. 
Burney,  Charlotte,  ii.  24  n.,  104  n.\  ii. 
195  n. 

Burney,  Frances  (Madame  D’Arblay), 
Browne,  Sir  W.,  i.  1 70  n. ;  Court  life, 
i.  293  n.\  ii.  30  n.\  Diaries,  ii.  18  n.\ 
Garrick,  Mrs.,  ii.  194/2.;  Gibbon,  ii. 
233  ;  Johnson  charming,  ii.  297  n.; 

—  and  Garrick,  ii.  249  n.  ;  —  fun,  i. 
287  n. ;  —  humour,  ii.  98  n. ;  —  occa¬ 
sional  sallies,  i.  102  n. ;  ii.  99  n. ;  — 
portrait,  ii.  164  n. ;  —  silence,  i.  160  ?z. ; 

—  strange  discipline,!.  102  n. ;  —  talk, 

i.  348  n. ;  Montagu,  Mrs.,  i.  338  n. ; 

ii.  183  n.\  Musgrave,  i.  342  n. ;  Percy, 
Bishop,  ii.  180  n. ;  Percy,  Mrs.,  ii. 
65  n. ;  Reynolds,  Miss,  ii.  455  n. ; 
Smart,  C.,  i.  320  n. ;  Sterne,  ii.  190  n.; 
Tucker,  Dean,  ii.  186  n. ;  Warren,  Dr., 
ii.  398  n. ;  mentioned,  i.  206  n. 

Burney,  Richard,  i.  280. 

Burney,  Susan,  i.  no  n.,  217  n .;  ii. 
18  n. 

Burney  family,  i.  15 1. 

Burns,  Robert,  ii.  409  n. 

Burrows,  Rev.  Dr.,  ii.  50. 

Burton,  J.  H.,  ii.  468. 

Burton,  Robert,  Anatomy  of  Melan¬ 
choly ,  i.  16  n.,  79  n.,  312  n. 

Busby,  Dr.,  ii.  304. 

Busby,  —  ,  a  proctor,  i.  179. 


Business  man,  i.  238  n. ;  ii.  13,  309, 

389- 

Bustle ,  i.  153  n. 

Bute,  third  Earl  of,  i.  322,  417-9;  ii. 

35°  35 7,  4i8«. 

Butler,  Samuel,  1  confute,’  &c.,  ii.  356  ; 
new  lights,  i.  463  n. ;  poverty,  i.  147, 
435  ;  scruples,  i.  41  n. 

Butt,  —  ,  ii.  83. 

Butter,  Dr.,  i.  445  ;  ii.  136,  152,  159. 
Button’s  Coffee  House,  i.  434. 
Byrom,  Dr.  John,  i.  380. 

Byron,  Lord,  i.  371  n. ;  ii.  316  n. 

C. 

Cabriolet  stool,  i.  150. 

Cadell,  Thomas,  i.  143,  234  n.,  297  n. 
Cadogan,  Lord,  ii.  109. 

Caesar,  Julius,  ii.  384. 

Cagliostro,  i.  143. 

Calais,  i.  74. 

Calamy,  Rev.  Edmund,  D.D.,  ii.  189  n . 
Callender,  Thomas,  ii.  2  n. 

Calvert,  Mrs.,  ii.  442. 

Calvin,  i.  428. 

Cambridge,  Johnson’s  prejudice,  i.  168, 
456 ;  visits  it,  ii.  405. 

Cambridge,  Richard  Owen,  ii.  22,  263  n. 
Cambyses,  i.  162. 

Camden,  Lord  Chancellor,  copyright- 
case,  i.  382  n. ;  ii.  443  n. ;  Garrick’s 
friend,  ii.  63 ;  —  funeral,  ii.  241  n. ; 
general  warrants,  ii.  82  n. ;  Literary 
Club,  ii.  32  n.,  196  n. 

Camden,  William,  ii.  460  n. 

Camoens,  ii.  343. 

Campbell,  Sir  Archibald,  i.  449  n. 
Campbell,  Archibald  ( Lexiphanes ),  i. 
407. 

Campbell,  Dr.  John,  i.  56 ;  ii.  51,  61  n., 
227  n.,  351,  358. 

Campbell,  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas,  Diary ,  ii. 

39-56,  467 ;  Strictures ,  &c.,  ii.  56  n. 
Canal,  i.  324. 

Cant ,  i.  161  n.,  314  n. 

Capell,  Edward,  ii.  315. 

Cards,  i.  221. 

Caricature,  i.  192  n. 

Carleton's ,  Captain,  Memoirs,  i.  319  n. 
Carlisle,  fifth  Earl  of,  ii.  304  n. 
Carlisle,  seventh  Earl  of,  ii.  273  n. 


Index . 


477 


Carlyle,  John . Churchill,  Charles. 


Carlyle,  John,  M.D.,  i.  260  n. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  Johnson’s  Frederick 
II,  i.  464  ft. ;  Raynal’s  History,  ii.  1 2 
9i.’,  Johnson  and  Voltaire,  ii.  30S  ft.; 
copyright,  ii.  445  91. 

Carmichael,  Miss,  i.  205  91. ;  ii.  41 1  n. 
Caroline,  Queen,  i.  372 ;  ii.  305  91. 
Carter,  Elizabeth,  Calais,  ii.  289  ft. ; 
Crousaz’s  Examen,  i.  374,480;  Greek, 
ii.  11  ;  Johnson’s  piety,  ii.  127  91. ; 
Memoirs ,  ii.  58-60 ;  More,  Hannah, 
ii.  1 81 ;  Rambler,  i.  180;  ii.  351; 
Richardson,  ii.  251,  435  91. ;  Russia, 
ii.  237  9i. ;  Williams,  Miss,  ii.  173; 
mentioned,  i.  102  91. ;  ii.  133  ft.,  183, 
201. 

Carter,  Rev.  Nicholas,  D.D.,  i.  374  n. ; 
ii.  77  91. 

Cary,  Rev.  Henry  Francis,  i.  478  ft. 
Casaubon,  Isaac,  i.  64  91. ;  ii.  362. 
Casimir,  i.  377. 

Catch ,  i.  73. 

Catiline,  i.  203. 

Cator,  John,  i.  340  91.,  349  n. ;  ii.  310. 
Cats,  i.  303. 

Cave,  Edward,  death,  i.  403  ;  Johnson, 
dazzles,  ii.  88 ;  —  Ode,  i.  465 ;  — 
Rambler,  i.  393  n. ;  wife,  ii.  163 ; 
mentioned,  i.  150  ft.,  366,  369,  373-5, 

377>  379>  382  91.;  ii.  342. 

Cervantes.  See  D091  Quixote. 
Chambers,  Catherine,  i.  44-6,  156. 
Chambers,  Ephraim,  i.  466  n. ;  ii.  348. 
Chambers,  Sir  Robert,  i.  230,  342  11., 
445J  J37  »• 

Chambers,  Sir  William,  ii.  188. 
Chamier,  Andrew,  i.  92,  230  n.,  420. 
Chandler,  Professor  H.  W.,  ii.  406  n. 
Chandler,  Dr.  Richard,  ii.  406. 
Chandos,  Duke  of,  ii.  430. 

Chapone,  Mrs.,  i.  180;  ii.  12  ft.,  191, 
251-2. 

Charlemont,  first  Earl  of,  i.  483  ft. ; 

ii.  30  91.,  137  ft.,  399  n. 

Charles  I,  i.  394,  461 ;  ii.  466. 
Charles  II,  Cowley’s  death,  ii.  335 ; 
descendants,  i.  273  ft.  ;  ii.  31  ft. ; 
portrait,  ii.  164  ft. ;  punning,  ii.  18  ft. ; 
touching  for  king’s  evil,  i.  133  ft. ; 
wits,  i.  385  ft. 

Charles  V,  i.  330  ft. 


Charlotte,  Queen,  ii.  402. 
Charter-House,  i.  402  n. 

Chatham,  Earl  of,  French  war,  i.  25  91. ; 
feudal  gabble,  i.  350  ft. ;  Johnson’s  De¬ 
bates,  i.  378  ;  ii.  342  ;  Trinity  College, 
ii.  85  ft. ;  Garrick,  ii.  241  ft.;  American 
War,  ii.  307;  meteor,  ii.  309  ft.;  story 
told  of  him,  ii.  400  ft. 

Chatterton,  Thomas,  ii.  15,  197,  346. 
Chaulnes,  Duke  of,  ii.  307. 

Chelsum,  Rev.  Dr.,  ii.  66  ft. 

Chetnist,  i.  307  ft. 

Chemistry,  i.  307. 

Chenevix,  Richard,  Bishop,  i.  359  ft. 
Cheselden,  William,  ii.  360. 

Cheshire  Cheese  Tavern,  ii.  91  ft. 
Chesterfield,  fourth  Earl  of,  Bath, 
Earl  of,  ii.  271  ft. ;  Bolingbroke, 
Viscount,  i.  222  ft.;  clubs,  i.  420  ft. ; 
courts  and  manners,  ii.  276  ft.;  educa¬ 
tion  of  women,  ii.  11  ft.  ;  flattery,  i. 
272  ft. ;  Ford,  Parson,  i.  359  ;  Hayley, 
ii.  421;  Hottentot,  respectable,  i.  384, 
451;  ii.  41,  348;  King’s  servants,  i. 
112  ft. ;  Johnson’s  Dictionary,  i.  383, 
405  ;  ii.  38,  95,  347-5°;  lace,  i-  253 
laughter,  ii.  1 86  ;  lertiores  virtutes,  i. 
454  n. ;  pride,  ii.  93  ft. ;  ridicule  and 
truth,  i.  452  n. ;  Rome,  i.  201  ft.; 
singularity,  i.  221  ft. ;  son,  ii.  16; 
speeches,  i.  379  ft. ;  volto  sciolto,  i. 
312  ft. ;  wit,  i.  385;  Yonge,  Sir  W., 

i.  464  n. 

Chesterfield,  fifth  Earl  of,  ii.  282  n. 
Chetwood,  William  Rufus,  i.  30  n. 
Cheyne,  Dr.,  ii.  346. 

Children,  shown  off,  i.  152;  ii.  415  ; 
stories,  i.  156;  early  impressions,  i. 
159;  education,  i.  160-3;  lnmps  of 
flesh,  i.  328;  examined,  ii.  118. 
Cholmondeley,  G.  J.,  i.  319. 
Cholmondely,  Mrs.,  i.  266  n.,  417  tt., 
451  ;  ii.  268. 

Christianity,  arguments  for  it,  i.  81 ; 

ii.  157,  306,  384;  attacks  on  it,  ii.  370; 
public  worship,  ii.  96 ;  expiatory  sacri¬ 
fice,  ii.  387.  See  also  under  Johnson, 
religion. 

Christie,  the  auctioneer,  ii.  380  ft. 
Church,  Dean,  ii.  305  n. 

Churchill,  Charles,  blockhead,  ii.  270  ft.; 


478 


Index. 


Churchill,  Charles . Cottenham,  Lord  Chancellor. 


Johnson’s  knowledge  of  books,  ii.  344 ; 
—  London ,  ii.  354  ;  —  ridiculed,  i.  271  ; 
ii-  9>  354- 

Cibber,  Colley,  Chesterfield  and  John¬ 
son,  i.  383  ;  Lady's  Last  Stake ,  i.  241 ; 
old  comedians,  ii.  99  ;  Parson  Ford, 

i.  359 ;  quoted  by  Goldsmith,  ii.  367 
n. ;  vanity,  ii.  244  n. 

Cicero,  i.  326  n.,  454 ;  ii.  8. 
Clarendon,  first  Earl  of,  ii.  35  11.,  48. 
Clarke,  Rev.  Samuel,  D.D.,  Sermons, 

i-  38,  53,  55,  65,  69,  97  ;  ii-  I23,  i56, 
3°5,  387;  studied  hard,  i.  181  n. ; 

ii.  9  n.,  143  n.,  214  n. ;  mentioned, 

i.  388  n. 

Clayton,  — ,  ii.  54. 

Clerk,  Sir  Philip  Jennings,  i.  339  n. ; 

ii.  139  n. 

Clever ,  ii.  234  n. 

Clubable ,  ii.  395  n. 

Clubs,  felicity  in  them,ii.  70;  Essex  Head 
club,  i.  440;  ii.  221,  378,  393?*.;  Ivy 
Lane  club,  i.  2  3 1 «. ,  388,394;  ii.  96, 100; 
Johnson  club,  ii.  100  n.,  380  n. ;  Literary 
club,  described,  i.  229, 420,  422  ;  ii.  63 ; 
distracted  by  party,  ii.  25  n. ;  elections, 
ii.  25  ;  Garrick’s  death,  ii.  196  ;  Gold¬ 
smith  there,  i.  31 1 ;  Johnson’s  funeral, 
ii.  137  n. ;  meetings  in  1790-1,  ii.  23, 
25, 30, 32 ;  midnight  club,  ii.  263?*. ;  sub¬ 
scribe  to  Lye’s  Dictionary ,  ii.  441  n. ; 
talk,  ii.  235  n. ;  Warren,  ii.  398  n. 
Cobbett,  William,  ii.  228  n. 

Cobblers,  i.  233  n. 

Cock  Lane  Ghost,  ii.  354. 
Cock-pennies,  i.  6  n. 

Cocker’s  Arithmetic ,  i.  200  n.  ;  ii.  45. 
Coffee,  i.  159. 

Cole,  Charles,  ii.  310. 

Cole,  Rev.  W.,  ii.  392. 

Colebrook,  Sir  George,  i.  207. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  dreams,  i. 
12  n. ;  Henderson,  ii.  198  n. ;  intelli- 
gibilia,  & c.,  ii.  246  n. ;  Hartley,  ii. 
3°4  »• 

Collier,  Arthur, D.C.L.,  i.  246,  268, 328. 
Collier,  Mrs.,  ii.  452  n. 

Collier,  — ,  i.  72-3. 

COLLINGTON,  — ,  i.  293  11. 

Collins,  Rev.  John,  ii.  316. 

Collins,  William,  i.  176  n. 


Colman,  George,  i.  183 ;  ii.  245,  320, 
^  388. 

Colomb,  Lady,  ii.  250,  279  n.,  448  n., 

449  »•,  455  *•>  456  n.,  457  n .,  459?*., 
460  n. 

Colson,  Rev.  Mr.,  i.  179. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  i.  402  n. 

Combe,  Charles,  i.  103  n . 

Combe,  — ,  ii.  51. 

Complaints,  i.  315  ;  ii.  20. 

Compton,  Rev.  James,  ii.  453. 

Conge  d’Elire,  ii.  327. 

Congreve,  Archdeacon,  ii.  40,  42,  52, 
1 14  n. 

Congreve,  William,  compared  with 
Shakespeare,  i.  186  ;  disowned  Ireland, 
ii.  48  ;  gentleman  in  his  comedies,  i. 
254;  Old  Bachelor,  ii.  233  n. ;  Steele’s 
dedication,  i.  482. 

Connoisseur,  The,  ii.  351. 

Conscience,  ii.  288. 

Convents.  See  Monasteries. 

Conversation,  kind  of  game,  i.  175; 
happiest,  i.  208  ;  telling  stories,  i.  265  ; 
without  effort,  i.  273;  *  spun  out  of 
one’s  own  bowels,’ i.  276;  unconvers¬ 
able  people,  i.  281  ;  promotes  happi¬ 
ness,  i.  289,  324;  coming  close  to  a 
man,  i.  442  n. ;  with  intelligent  persons, 
ii.  14;  above  the  audience,  ii.  222. 
See  also  under  Johnson. 

Convocation,  ii.  369. 

Convulsionary,  ii.  338. 

Conway,  General,  i.  242  n. 

Cook,  Captain,  i.  280  n. ;  ii.  415  n. 

Cook,  Thomas  (the  engraver),  i.  248  n. 

Cooke,  George  Frederick,  ii.  318  n. 

Cooke,  William,  i.  360  n. ;  ii.  161  n., 
221  n. ;  Anecdotes ,  ii.  393-4. 

Cooper,  John  Gilbert,  i.  424  n. ;  ii.  288 
n.,  348. 

Copy-right,  i.  382  n.,  433  n. ;  ii.  437 ; 
Johnson’s  letter,  ii.  442  ;  prices  paid 
for  it,  ii.  349. 

Corbet,  Andrew,  i.  362  ;  ii.  85. 

Corbet,  Mrs.,  i.  151. 

Corke,  fifth  Earl  of,  ii.  350,  436-7. 

Corneille,  compared  with  Shakespeare, 
i.  187  ;  lines  on  Richelieu,  ii.  307. 

Corsican  Fairy,  ii.  377. 

Cottenham,  Lord  Chancellor,  i.  244  n. 


Index . 


479 


Cotterell,  Charlotte . Delany,  Mrs. 


Cotterell,  Charlotte,  ii.  251,  261, 408  n. 
Cotterell,  Mrs.,  ii.  310. 

Cottle,  Joseph,  ii.  198  n. 

Cotton,  Sir  Robert,  i.  190. 

Cotton,  — ,  i.  104. 

Coulson,  Rev.  John,  i.  197  n. ;  ii.  406. 
Country,  i.  289,  324. 

Courtenay,  John,  ii.  21,  26,  32,  34, 
36-8,  359  * - 

Courtney,  W.  P.,  ii.  312. 

Courvoisier,  i.  252  n. 

Cow-lane,  i.  336. 

Cowley,  Abraham,  death,  ii.  335  ;  John¬ 
son’s  Life ,  i.  477;  letters,  ii.  363  ; 
Philosophic  College,  i.  306  n. ;  style, 
i.  466. 

Cowper,  William,  Johnson’s  Journal , 
i.  81  n .,  450  n. ;  —  Lives  of  the  Poets, 

i.  477  n.,  479  n. ;  ii.  371  n. ;  Pilgrim' s 
Progress ,  i.  333  n. ;  neglected  by 
Thnrlow,  i.  443  n.  ;  Moses  Browne,  ii. 
89  n. ;  John  Gilpin,  ii.  41 1  n. 

Cox,  — ,  a  solicitor,  i.  105-6. 

Coxcombs,  i.  349. 

Crabbe,  Rev.  George,  i.  443  n. 
Cradock,  Joseph,  Anecdotes ,  ii.  61-71, 
410. 

Crauford,  — ,  ii.  404. 

Craven,  Earl  of,  ii.  334. 

Craven,  Lady,  ii.  175  n. 

Crisp,  Samuel,  i.  338  n. 

Critic,  i.  480  n. 

Croesus,  i.  162  n. 

Croft,  Rev.  Herbert,  i.  104  n. 

Crofts,  — ,  i.  104,  106. 

Croker,  Rt.  Hon.  John  Wilson,  absurd 
suspicion,  i.  382  n. ;  Greek,  i.  89  n. ; 
Hannah  More,  ii.  178  ;  meeting  dukes, 

ii.  68  n. ;  Steevens,  ii.  328. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  eminent  personage, 

i.  300  n. ;  Milton’s  adulation,  i.  485  ; 
miniature,  ii.  24  n. ;  wasted  Ireland, 
ii-  55- 

Crousaz,  John  Peter  de,  i.  374,  480. 
Cruikshank,  William  Cumberland,  i. 
445,  448  J  ii-  J33-6,  156,  158-9,  385-6, 
388. 

Crutchley,  Jeremiah,  i.  340  n. 
Cubley,  i.  129  n. 

Cumberland,  Duke  of  (uncle  of  George 
III),  ii.  169  n. 


Cumberland,  Duke  of  (brother  of 
George  III),  ii.  68. 

Cumberland,  Mrs.,  ii.  76. 
Cumberland,  Richard,  Anecdotes,  ii. 

72-78  ;  Odes,  ii.  265  ;  actors,  ii.  318  n. 
Cumming,  Thomas,  i.  274. 
Cunningham,  Peter,  i.  188  n. 

Curtis,  Alderman,  ii.  36. 

Curzon,  — ,  ii.  392  n. 

Cyrus  the  Great,  i.  162. 

D. 

Dacre,  Lord,  ii.  316  n. 

Dalloway,  Dr.,  ii.  158. 

Dalrymple,  Sir  John,  ii.  10. 

Dance,  — ,  ii.  33. 

Dante,  life  an  arch,  i.  260  n. ;  Brutus, 
i.  48 6n.;  Virgil,  ii.  165  n.;  Count 
Ugolino,  ii.  248  n. 

Dartrey,  Lord,  ii.  50. 

Darwin,  Charles  Robert,  avoided  con¬ 
troversies,  i.  271  n. ;  reading  articles  he 
could  not  understand,  ii.  222  n.  ;  Dr. 
Warren,  ii.  398  n. 

Darwin,  Dr.  Erasmus,  ii.  398  n.,  415  n. 
Darwin,  Francis,  ii.  222  n. 

David,  King,  ii.  404. 

Davies,  Thomas,  Johnson’s  benevolence, 

i.  35,  184  n. ;  ii.  61  n. ;  —  and  Bos¬ 
well,  i.  427  ;  —  and  Cradock,  ii.  61  ; 
—  and  Stockdale,  ii.  330  ;  —  Fugitive 
Pieces,  i.  184;  ii.  187  n. ;  —  laugh, 

ii.  71  n. ;  — ,  present  to,  ii.  153 ;  men¬ 
tioned,  i.  30,  106 ;  ii.  17  n.,  453. 

Davies,  Mrs.,  ii.  62,  151. 

Davis,  H.  E.,  ii.  66. 

Dawkins,  ‘Jamaica,’  i.  213. 

Day,  — ,  ii.  39. 

Dead,  commending  the.  See  under 
Prayers. 

Deane,  Mrs.,  ii.  404. 

Death,  ii.  101,  394.  See  under  John¬ 
son. 

Debates  of  Parliament ,  i.  378,  446,  476  ; 

ii.  342,  412. 

Debtors,  ii.  323  n. 

Decumbent ,  i.  81. 

Dedications,  i.  405. 

De  Foe,  Daniel,  i.  332  ;  ii.  90  n. 
Delany,  Rev.  Dr.  Patrick,  ii.  54. 
Delany,  Mrs.,  i.  293  n. 


480 


Index. 


Delap,  Rev.  Dr . Dyott,  General. 


Delap,  Rev.  Dr.,  i.  234,  423. 

Delicacy,  i.  326,  329. 

Demosthenes,  i.  378. 

Denham,  Sir  John,  i.  417  n. 

Denmark,  King  of,  i.  183. 

Dennis,  John,  ii.  18  11.,  371. 

Denny,  — ,  ii.  52. 

De  Quincey,  Thomas,  Hannah  More, 
ii.  178  ;  Henderson,  ii.  198  n. ;  Hart¬ 
ley,  ii.  304  n. 

Derange,  ii.  20. 

Descartes,  i.  417  n. 

Desmoulins,  John,  ii.  154-6,  159, 
386. 

Desmoulins,  Mrs.,  i.  88,  95,  105-6, 
205  n .,  248  n. ;  ii.  217,  41 1  n. 

Dessert,  i.  non. 

Devil  Tavern,  i.  433  ;  ii.  99,  378. 

Devonport,  ii.  419. 

Devonshire,  fifth  Duke  of,  ii.  241  n ., 
326  n. 

Devonshire,  Duchess  of,  ii.  326  n. 

Diacodium,  i.  102  n. 

Dickens,  Charles,  i.  179  n. 

Dictionary,  Johnson’s,  undertaken  and 
progress,  i.  14,  382,  388,  403-7;  ii. 
94,  106  n.,  374  ;  Plan ,  i.  383  ;  ii.  347; 
second  edition,  i.  404  n. ;  revised,  i.  63, 
182,  298  n. ;  ii.  227;  definitions,  i. 
182  7z.,  472  n. ;  ii.  50,  278;  authors 
quoted,  i.  272  ;  effect  on  Johnson’s 
style,  i.  466  ;  described  by  Percy,  ii. 
213  ;  edition  after  Johnson’s  death,  i. 
356  n. ;  ‘  naughty  words,’  ii.  390 ; 
ocean,  ii.  404. 

Diderot,  Denys,  ii.  249  n. 

Didot,  ii.  22  n. 

Dies  Irce,  i.  284. 

Digby,  Mrs.,  ii.  390. 

Dilly,  Charles,  i.  71 ;  ii.  21,  35,  47-9, 
72,  283  n.,  458. 

Dilworth,  — ,  i.  464  n. 

Dinarbas,  ii.  171  n. 

Dingley,  Mrs.,  ii.  331. 

Dinner,  i.  249. 

Diogenes,  ii.  103. 

Diversion,  i.  324. 

Dixie,  Sir  Wolstan,  i.  364. 

Dixon,  Rev.  Canon,  ii.  198  n. 

Doble,  Charles  Edward,  i.  11472. 

Dodd,  Rev.  William,  D.D.,  i.  181,  432, 


486;  ii.  14,  131  n.,  143  n.,  282-4,  319> 
362,  418. 

Dodington,  Bubb  (Lord  Melcombe),  ii. 
104. 

Dodsley,  Robert,  i.  41572.;  ii.  16,  341, 
390  72. 

Dog,  i.  245.  . 

Dogs,  digestion  of,  ii.  405. 

Don  Quixote,  i.  332,  478. 

Donaldson,  Alexander,  ii.  443  7 2. 

Donne,  Dr.,  i.  478  ;  ii.  404. 

Dose,  ii.  321  n. 

Doughty,  William,  ii.  10. 

Douglas,  John,  D.D.,  Bishop  of  Car¬ 
lisle  and  afterwards  of  Salisbury, 
Swift’s  History,  i.  188  n. ;  1  Detector  of 
quacks,’  i.  397, ii.  356 ;  Johnson’s  friend, 
i.  416  ;  Literary  Club,  ii.  26  ;  Cock 
Lane  Ghost,  ii.  355  n. ;  mentioned,  i. 
289  72. 

Douglas,  Dr.,  ii.  60. 

Dozvn,  i.  169  ;  ii.  261. 

Drawing-room,  i.  293  n. 

Dreams,  i.  11,  23,  159. 

Dress,  i.  221,  336-8. 

Dressed,  i.  260  n. 

Drony,  i.  219. 

Drujinine,  ii.  147  n. 

Drury  Lane  Theatre,  i.  385. 

Dryden,  Erasmus  Henry,  ii.  177. 

Dryden,  John,  Absalom  and  Achitophcl, 
i.  468  72. ;  All  for  Love,  i.  281  72. ;  at¬ 
tacks,  i.  27172.;  coffee-house,  i.  434; 
copy-right,  ii.  442  n. ;  description  of 
night,  i.  186  ;  foreign  words,  i.  467  ; 
greatness,  i.  185  n.  ;  metaphysical 
poets,  i.  478  72. ;  Milton,  epigram  on, 
i.  196  ;  CEdipus ,  ii.  62  ;  Preface  to 
Fables ,  i.  40772.;  prologues,  ii.  23972.; 
prose  style,  i.  466;  puns,  ii.  1872.; 
quoted,  ii.  350;  son’s  nurse,  ii.  177; 
writing  for  money,  ii.  91 7 2. 

Dublin,  Trinity  College,  Johnson  seeks 
a  degree,  i.  373 ;  —  one  conferred,  i. 
423  ;  ii.  29  ;  —  and  the  steward,  ii. 
30  72. ;  invitation  to  Baretti,  ii.  40  ;  Dr. 
Madan’s  premiums,  ii.  211. 

Dutch,  ii.  154. 

Dyce,  Alexander,  i.  474  72. 

Dyer,  Samuel,  i.  214  n.,  230,  389  ;  ii.  80. 

Dyott,  General,  i.  1 30  n. 


Index . 


481 


Easton  Mauduit . Foote,  Samuel. 


E. 

Easton  Mauduit,  ii.  64. 

Edgcumbe,  Sir  Pearce,  i.  421. 

Edgeworth,  Maria,  patronage  of 
fashion,  i.  287  n.  ;  improving  after 
forty-five,  ii.  262  n.  ;  Absentee ,  ii. 

414  n. 

Edgeworth,  Professor,  ii.  414  n. 
Edgeworth,  R.  L.,  ii.  414  n. 

Edinburgh  Friday  Club,  i.  230  n. 
Education,  i.  281,  295;  ii.  9,  301. 
Edwards,  Rev.  Dr.  Edward,  ii.  197  n., 
199,  400  n. 

Edwards,  Oliver,  i.  83. 

Edwards,  Thomas,  i.  274  n. 

Edwards,  — ,  ii.  21. 

Eikon  Basilike ,  i.  394. 

Eliot,  first  Lord,  ii.  32,  137  «.,  458. 

Eliot,  — ,  a  barrister,  ii.  258. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  ii.  387. 

Elliot,  Sir  John,  M.D.,  i.  431  n. 

Elliott,  George  Augustus  (Lord  Heath- 
field),  i.  242. 

Ellis,  John,  ii.  324  n. 

Ellis,  Joshua,  ii.  85  n. 

Ellis,  Mrs.  Raine,  i.  293  n. ;  ii.  18  n. 

Ellis,  Viner,  ii.  85  n. 

Elphinstone,  James,  i.  188,  205  n ., 

319  n .,  419  n. 

Eminent ,  i.  300. 

England,  in  1782,  ii.  56  n. 

Englishman  at  Paris ,  i.  216. 

Epitaphs,  i.  238  n. ;  ii.  373. 

Erasmus,  ii.  12,  11 6  n.,  123,  340,  346. 
Erskine,  Lord  Chancellor,  ii.  30. 

Esdras,  i.  62. 

Este,  Cardinal  d’,  ii.  366. 

Eugene,  Prince,  ii.  51. 

Euripides,  i.  191  ;  ii.  70. 

Evans,  Rev.  Mr.,  i.  253. 

Evelyn,  John,  i.  133  n. 

Excepted ,  i.  297  n. 

Executions,  ii.  283  n.,  284  «.,  418. 
Exercise,  i.  288. 

F. 

Fabricius,  ii.  123. 

Faden,  — ,  i.  447  ;  ii.  412. 

F'airfax,  Edward,  ii.  145. 

Falkland's  Islands ,  i.  426,  474  ;  ii.  424. 
False  Alarm ,  i.  173,  425,  474;  ii.  46;/. 

VOL.  II.  I  1 


Family  disputes,  ii.  17. 

Fantoccini,  i.  421. 

Farmer,  Rev.  Richard,  D.D.,  ii.  68, 

392- 

Farquhar,  George,  ii.  49. 

Farr,  Dr.,  ii.  420. 

Faulkner,  George,  ii.  437. 

Fawkes,  Francis,  i.  176. 

Fear,  i.  330. 

Fenton,  Elijah,  i.  155,  359;  ii.  375. 
Fergusson,  Dr.  Adam,  i.  188,  419. 
Fergusson,  Sir  Adam,  i.  220  n. 

Feudal  times,  i.  350. 

Fiat  experimentum,  &c.,  ii.  4. 

Fiddes,  Richard,  i.  72. 

Fielding,  Plenry,  compared  with 
Richardson,  i.  282;  ii.  190;  debtors’ 
prison,  ii.  323  n.;  ‘goodness  of  heart,’ 

i.  441  ;  Russian  translation,  ii.  237  n. ; 
Amelia ,  i.  29 7,  319  n.,  371  n. ;  Joseph 
Andre7vs,  i.  136  n.,  253  n.,  293  n. ; 

ii.  260  n .,  341  ;  Tom  Jones ,  i.  137  n., 

163  n.,  228  n .,  384  n .,  441  465  n. ; 

ii.  15  n.,  95  n .,  346  n. 

Fields,  James  T.,  ii.  453  n. 

Fields,  Mrs.  James  T.,  i.  371  n. ;  ii. 
133  »• 

Figg,  the  prize-fighter,  i.  149  n. 

Fisher,  Dr.,  ii.  407. 

Fitzgerald,  Edward,  ii.  165  ft.,  191  n. 
Fitzherbert,  William,  i.  256,  327  n., 
416 ;  ii.  392  n. 

Fitzherbert,  Mrs.,  i.  255. 

Fitzroy,  Lady,  ii.  261  n. 

Flattery,  i.  272  ;  ii.  224. 

Fleetwood,  Bishop,  ii.  147. 
Fleetwood,  Charles,  i.  369. 

Fletcher,  Mrs.,  i.  105  n. 

Flint,  Bet,  i.  226  n. 

Flint,  — ,  ii.  452. 

Florus,  Lucius,  i.  294. 

Floyer,  Sir  John,  i.  444  n. 

Fludyer,  Rev.  John,  ii.  199  n. 
Fontenelle,  Descartes  and  Newton,  i. 
417;  ‘embalmed  the  dead,’  i.  434; 
Is  logo  de  Newton ,  ii.  360. 

Fontenoy,  i.  203  n. 

Foote,  Samuel,  compared  with  Garrick, 
ii.  238,  240;  dinner  at  his  house,  i. 
378  ;  infidel,  i.  21 1». ;  Johnson  threatens 
him,  i.  424  ;  ii.  345  ;  Macklin,  ii.  2 


482 


Index. 


Foote,  Samuel . Garrick,  David. 


rising  in  the  world,  i.  424 ;  ii.  4 ; 
stories,  i.  225,  265 ;  wit,  ii.  6. 

Foppish ,  i.  214. 

Forbes,  Bishop,  ii.  466. 

Forbes,  Sir  William,  Bart.,  i.  233  n. ; 
ii.  185  n.,  195. 

Ford,  Cornelius,  i.  149,  359. 

Ford,  Rev.  Cornelius,  i.  154,  359,  360; 
ii.  88,  209  n. 

Ford,  Nathaniel,  ii.  88  n. 

Ford,  Mrs.  Nathaniel,  i.  131,  139. 

Ford,  Sarah,  i.  139. 

Fordyce,  Dr.  George,  ii.  26,  137  n. 
Forster,  John,  ii.  73. 

Fort  Augustus,  i.  80. 

Fort  George,  i.  182  n. 

Fortescue,  Sir  John,  ii.  20. 

Foster,  Elizabeth,  i.  397. 

Foster,  Rev.  Dr.  James,  ii.  41. 
Fountain  Tavern,  i.  369. 

Fowke,  Joseph,  ii.  349  n. 

Fox,  Charles  James,  Literary  Club,  i. 
202,  229  n.)  ii.  25  n.,  30,  32,  137/2.; 
descended  from  Charles  II,  ii.  31  n. ; 
law  of  libels,  ii.  36  n. ;  Garrick’s  guest, 
ii.  245  n. ;  Wealth  of  Nations,  ii.  424/2. ; 
Indian  Bill,  ii.  458  n. 

Fox,  Henry,  first  Lord  Holland,  i.  240/2. 
Fox,  John,  i.  414  n. 

Fracastorius,  i.  366. 

France,  Academy,  i.  183,  404,  434 ; 
extremes,  ii.  289 ;  horse-race,  ii.  289, 
291  ;  invasion  threatened,  i.  203  ;  ii. 
377,  450;  literature,  i.  216,  334;  ii. 
289;  Johnson’s  prejudices,  ii.  226; 
meals,  i.  216  n. ;  prisoners,  ii.  370. 
Francis,  Rev.  Dr.  Philip,  i.  378. 
Franklin,  Benjamin,  change  of  style, 
i.  129  n. ;  dedications,  i.  405  n.  ; 
Mandeville,  i.  207  n. ;  printing,  ii. 
22/2.;  thankfulness,  i.  107/2.;  West 
Indians,  ii.  302  n. 

Fraser  of  Strichen,  i.  324  n. 

Frederick  II,  King  of  Prussia,  dressed 
plain,  i.  221  n. ;  Johnson  downed 
Robertson  with  him,  i.  169  n. ;  — 
wrote  his  Life ,  i.  464  ;  Raynal,  i.  212  n. 
Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales,  ii.  5/2. 
Freewill,  ii.  233,  256. 

Freind,  Dr.,  ii.  378. 

Fr£ron,  ii.  308. 


Friends,  laughing  at  absent,  ii.  50; 

friendship  to  be  kept  in  repair,  ii.  69  n. 
Fuller’s  Worthies ,  i.  444  n. 

Fun ,  i.  170/2. 

Furmenty ,  ii.  163. 

G. 

Galen,  i.  90  //.,  260  n. 

Galgacus,  i.  430. 

Gamble ,  ii.  28  22. 

Gambler,  i.  182. 

Gardens,  i.  323. 

Gardiner,  Mrs.,  i.  80;  ii.  147,  155-6, 
158-9. 

Garretson,  — ,  i.  137. 

Garrick,  Captain,  i.  367. 

Garrick,  David,  Barnard’s  lines,  ii.  265  ; 
Boswell’s  shoeblack, ii.  226  n. ;  Camden, 
Lord,  ii.  63 ;  Chesterfield,  Lord,  i. 
406  n. ;  Comus ,  i.  397  ;  Congreve  and 
Shakespeare,  i.  186  ;  conversation,  ii. 
235;  death, i.  276  n.\  ii.  416/2.;  Drury 
Lane,  i.  385  ;  Dryden  praised,  i.  185  ; 
fame,  ii.  237,  244,  332  ;  flattery,  love 
of,  ii.  430;  friends,  ii.  246;  funeral, 
ii.  241  22.,  379  22.;  grave,  i.  449;  ii. 
137,  3 78;  Hogarth’s  epitaph,  i.  240; 
Johnson,  arguing,  ii.  218  n.  ;  —  and 
Beauclerk,  i.  383  n. ;  —  compared 
with  Shakespeare,  i.  387  ;  —  Dialogues , 
ii.  233-49 ;  —  dines  with  him,  i.  424 ; 

—  epitaph  on  him,  i.  445 ;  ii.  123  ;  — 
house,  ii.  394 ;  —  humour,  i.  345  ;  — 
inattention,  ii.  277 ;  —  Irene,  i.  386 ; 
—  Lichfield  theatre,  i.  224  ;  ii.  1 14  n.\ 
— ,  mimics,  ii.  23  n.,  195,  21 1  ;  — 
offers  to  write  his  Life,  i.  458  ;  —  and 
Percy,  ii.  68  ;  —  pleasure,  greatest,  ii. 
45  5  —  property,  ii.  50,  233,  249  n. ; 

—  prophecy,  ii.  315;  —  Prologue, 
i-  385;  &  3H;  —  Punch,  i.  457;  ii. 

248,  317;  —  Pupii>  i-  367  ;  237; 

—  rare  copies  of  Shakespeare,  ii.  327/2., 
357/2.,  394;  —  rudeness,  ii.  258;  — 
silence  about  him,  ii.  326 ;  —  wife, 

i.  248,  376;  ii.  102  ;  liberality,  i.  457  ; 

ii.  194,  238,  249  ;  Literary  Club,  ii. 
26  n.,  196 ;  London,  comes  to,  i.  368 ; 
ii.  341  ;  manners,  ii.  242 ;  mimicry, 
i.  287  //. ;  ii.  240  ;  Montagu,  Mrs.,  ii. 
307  n. ;  More,  Hannah,  ii.  177,  184, 


Index. 


483 


Garrick,  David . Goldsmith,  Oliver. 


186,  188,  194  n.;  plots,  ii.  245; 
portrait,  i.  265  n.,  342  n. ;  prologues, 
ii.  239;  Prospero,  i.  179,  456  ;  raised 
the  rank  of  a  player,  ii.  241,  430; 
Shakespeare’s  mulberry,  ii.  429  ;  Stock- 
dale,  ii.  330;  studied  his  art,  ii.  318; 
unspoiled,  ii.  332;  Whig,  i.  172; 
Williams,  Miss,  i.  403;  ii.  173  n. ; 
mentioned,  i.  351  n.,  405,  408,  421  ; 
ii.  368. 

Garrick,  George,  i.  285  n.,  454. 
Garrick,  Mrs.  (Garrick’s  mother),  ii. 

237>  3*5- 

Garrick,  Mrs.  (Garrick’s  wife),  i.  458  ; 
ii.  23  n.,  177,  184,  186,  187  n.,  191, 
194,  429. 

Garrick,  Peter,  i.  369  n. 

Garth,  Sir  Samuel,  i.  223  n. ;  ii.  136  n. 
Gastrell,  Mrs.,  i.  107;  ii.  413-5,  418, 
429  n. 

Gay,  John,  i.  30,  258,  479;  ii.  331  n. 
Genius,  i.  314;  ii.  264,  287. 

Gentility,  i.  253-4,  423  n. 

Gentleman's  Magazine ,  i.  369,  377,  379, 
380  n.,  446;  ii.  80,  412. 

George  I,  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  i. 
1 71  ;  Shippen  and  Walpole,  ii.  306  n . ; 

‘  a  robber,’  ii.  466. 

George  II,  sublime  strut,  i.  183  n. ; 
literature  in  his  reign,  ii.  7  n. ;  Trini¬ 
tarian  controversy,  ii.  305  ;  *  a  fool,’  ii. 
466. 

George  III,  no  traveller,  i.  52  n. ;  read 
Fiozzl's  Anecdotes,  i.  143;  sub-preceptor, 
i.  180  n.’,  Johnson’s  interviews,  i.  181  n., 
424;  ii.  15  «.,  38,  69  n.,  192,  344, 
354,  372  n. ;  —  pension,  i.  417;  ii. 
150,  35°  >  — application  for  increase, 

i.  442-3;  ii.  150,  369;?.,  388,  459; 
Lady  Sarah  Lennox,  ii.  31  n. ;  madness, 

ii.  398  n. ;  physicians,  ii.  158  n. ;  Garrick, 
ii.  249  n. ;  neglected  Reynolds,  ii.  401 ; 
Coalition  Ministry,  ii.  458  n.\  treated 
with  indecency,  ii.  458  n. ;  unpopularity, 
ii.  347  n. ;  pensions,  ii.  355  n. ;  ‘  idiot,’ 
ii.  466. 

George  IV,  Johnson  kept  waiting  for 
his  dinner,  i.  150  n. ; — questioned  him, 
ii.  1 18;  present  at  a  prize-fight,  i. 
475  n. ;  spoke  highly  of  a  man,  ii.  69  ; 
his  preceptor,  ii.  191  n. 


Ghosts,  i.  278,  455 ;  ii.  234,  354. 
Gibbon,  Edward,  the  historian’s  father, 
ii.  306  n. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  alchemy,  i.  307  n. ; 
Barnard,  Dean,  ii.  263,  265  ;  common¬ 
place  topics,  ii.  101  n. ;  dedication, 

i.  405  n. ;  Francis,  Dr.,  i.  378  n. ; 
Hayley,  ii.  420  n. ;  Horsley,  i.  106  n. ; 
Inquisition,  i.  215  n. ;  Johnson  and 
Fox,  i.  202  n. ;  —  Irene ,  i.  38 6n. ;  — 
Reynolds’s  Dialogue,  ii.  233,  237-49; 
libraries,  i.  425  n. ;  Liskard,  ii.  458  n . ; 
Literary  Club,  ii.  67  n.,  137  n.;  Lowth, 
Bishop,  i.  366  n. ;  More,  Hannah,  ii. 
188,  194,  232  n. ;  Ossory,  Lord,  ii. 
23  n. ;  Oxford,  ii.  313  n. ;  payments 
for  History ,  ii.  349  ;  pirates  of  Dublin, 

ii.  437  n. ;  Pritchard,  Mrs.,  ii.  248  n. ; 
Reply  to  Davis,  ii.  66 ;  Roman  Catholic, 
i.  15  n.\  Sarpi,  Paolo,  ii.  345  n. ; 
ugliness,  i.  211  n. ;  ii.  67  n. 

Gibraltar,  i.  109  n.,  143,  242. 

Gil  Bias,  i.  457  n. 

Gilman,  — ,  i.  133  n. 

Gladiolus  Scriptorius ,  i.  140. 

Gladstone,  Right  Hon.  W.  E.,  ii.  92  11. 
YvwOi  aeavrov,  i.  409. 

Godwin,  William,  i.  156  n. 

Goethe,  first  sight  of  the  sea,  i.  52  n. ; 
training  of  actors,  ii.  249  n. ;  a  roaming 
life,  ii.  254  n. 

Goldsmith,  Rev.  Henry,  ii.  371  n. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  autograph  letter, 
i.  227  n.;  Berlin ,  ii.  441  n.\  death, 
i.  99  n. ;  Deserted  Village,  ii.  324  n. ; 
Dr.  Minor,  i.  270;  envy,  i.  421; 
Goodman  Dull,  i.  270;  Good  Natured 
Alan,  i.  31 1  ;  Goody  Two  Shoes,  i. 
156  n. ;  grave,  i.  449  n. ;  Haunch  of 
Venison ,  ii.  120  n. ;  histories,  ii.  10  n.; 
improvidence,  ii.  424  n. ;  Johnson 
apologizes  to  him,  i.  453  n. ;  —  bio¬ 
grapher,  i.  166;  — ,  claim  on,  i. 

488  n. ;  — ,  contests  with,  i.  269  ;  ii. 
93  n->  367  ;  —  Dictionary,  ii.  350;  — 
epitaph,  i.  239,  482  n. ;  ii.  379 ;  — 
friendship,  i.  421 ;  —  monk,  i.  210  n. ; 
—  overawed  him,  ii.  270;  —  Pamel’s 
epitaph,  ii.  293 ;  —  praises  him,  ii.  49  ; 
—  Rambler,  ii.  351  ;  —  roughness,  ii. 
296  n. ;  Life ,  i.  272  n. ;  Literary  Club, 


I  1  2 


484 


Index. 


Goldsmith,  Oliver . Harcourt,  Lord. 


i.  230,  269  77.,  420  ;  mutual  friend ii. 
219  n. ;  pension,  no,  ii.  355  n. ;  portrait, 

i.  342  n. ;  ii.  269;  poverty,  ii.  371  n. ; 
Retaliation,  ii.  64,  182,  239,  246, 
262  n. ;  She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  ii.  73, 
318;  solitary  pleasures,  i.  220  n. ; 
Sterne,  i.  33472.;  ii.  270  n.,  320  n.; 
Temple’s  and  Tillotson’s  styles,  i.  466  n. ; 
Traveller ,  i.  454  n.;  ii.  6,  223,  235, 
268,  466 ;  ugly,  ii.  268 ;  Ursa  Minor, 

ii.  270;  Vicar  of  Wakefield,  i.  227  ; 
Warburton,  ii.  331  ;  white  lies,  ii.  223  ; 
Williams,  Miss,  ii.  173;  mentioned, 

i.  214  n. ;  ii.  179  n.,  232  n.,  248  n. 
Gongora,  ii.  441. 

Gordon,  Sir  A.,  i.  430  n. 

Gordon,  General  C.  G.,  ii.  93  n. 
Goring,  Charles,  i.  369  n. 

Gothic,  i.  478;  ii.  230,  2 66. 

Gout,  i.  276. 

Government  of  the  Tongue ,  i.  87  n. 
Gower,  first  Earl,  i.  373, 472  n. ;  ii.  361. 
Graces,  The,  ii.  52. 

Grafton,  third  Duke  of,  i.  203  n. 
Graham,  Rev.  George,  i.  270. 
Grainger,  Dr.  James,  ii.  216,  265. 
Granby,  Marquis  of,  ii.  172  n. 

Grand  Chartreux,  i.  263. 

Graves,  — ,  a  hop-merchant,  ii.  27477. 
Gray,  Thomas,  Churchill  more  in  vogue, 

ii.  354  77. ;  Colman’s  Odes,  ii.  320 ; 
Elegy ,  i.  438  ;  ii.  52,  268  77.;  father,  ii. 
32477.;  Garrick’s  epilogues,  ii.  24077.; 
Grande  Chartreuse,  i.  263  77. ;  Johnson, 
Life  by,  i.  479;  ii.  371-2,  420;  — 
parody,  i.  19 1 ;  —  Ursa  Major,  ii. 
27077.;  reading  and  writing,  ii.  7377.  ; 
Smith,  Adam,  ii.  321  77.;  travels,  i. 
476. 

Gray's  Inn  Journal,  i.  306  77.,  408  ;  ii. 
35*. 

Greatrakes,  Valentine,  ii.  33877. 
Greaves,  Samuel,  i.  111  77.,  440;  ii.  449. 
Greek ,  i.  253  77. 

Green,  Bishop,  ii.  340. 

Green,  Richard,  Anecdotes,  ii.  397-399. 
Green,  Thomas  (of  Ipswich) ,  Anecdotes, 
ii.  399. 

Grenville,  Right  Hon.  George,  i.  25477. 
Greville,  C.  C.,  ii.  207. 

Greville,  F.,  ii.  298  77. 


Grey,  second  Earl,  i.  104  n. 

Grey,  Dr.  Zachary,  i.  289  77. 

Grierson,  — ,  i.  226. 

Grimm,  Baron,  ii.  282  77. 

Grosvenor  Square,  ii.  192. 

Grote,  George,  i.  230  n. 

Grote,  Mrs.,  i.  23077. 

Grotius,  i.  71  77.,  81 77.,  157,  419,  445  77.; 

ii.  123,  297. 

Grub  Street,  i.  414. 

Guadagni,  i.  197  77. 

Gustavus  Vasa,  i.  380. 

Guthrie,  William,  i.  378  ;  ii.  92,  343. 
Gwatkin,  Miss,  ii.  219. 

Gwatkin,  R.  L.,  ii.  219  77. 

Gwynn,  John,  ii.  406. 

Gwynn,  Mrs.,  ii.  232  n. 

Gwynne,  Nell,  ii.  15077. 

H. 

Hacket,  Bishop,  i.  84  n. 

Haddon,  W'alter,  i.  no  77. 

Hailes,  Lord,  ii.  466. 

Hair,  growth  of,  i.  91. 

Halifax,  Lord,  i.  401. 

Hall,  Rev.  G.  W.,  D.D.,  ii.  460  77. 
Hall,  Mrs.,  i.  98;  ii.  147,  154  77. 
Hamilton,  Archibald,  i.  412  n.,  430, 
447- 

Hamilton,  Miss,  ii.  201. 

Hamilton,  Right  Hon.  William  Gerard, 
Johnson  engaging  in  politics,  i.  36  ; 
—  hunting,  i.  288  ;  —  death,  ii.  19  77. ; 
—  Life,  ii.  34;  — ,  visits,  ii.  22177.; 
Junius,  i.  17277.;  mentioned,  i.  105  ; 
ii.  133  77. 

Hamilton,  Sir  William,  ii.  137  77. 
Hammond,  Henry,  D.D.,  i.‘ 100,  107; 
ii.  19. 

Hammond,  James,  ii.  371. 

Hampden,  Bishop,  ii.  328  77. 

Hampden,  John,  i.  483  77. 

Hampstead,  ii.  313,  328  77. 

Handel,  ii.  103  77.,  305  77. 

Hanmer,  Sir  Thomas,  i.  381,  382  n.; 
ii.  1 1 4. 

Hanoverian  family,  ii.  347,  467. 
Hanway,  Jonas,  i.  414;  ii.  364. 
Happiness,  i.  334;  ii.  13. 

Harborough,  Earl  of,  ii.  70. 
Harcourt,  Lord,  ii.  59  77. 


Index. 


485 


Hardinge,  George . Holyday,  Barten. 


Hardinge,  George,  ii.  316. 
Harrington,  James,  ii.  97. 

Harriots,  Mrs.,  i.  56,  132. 

Harris,  James,  i.  187;  ii.  70,  188,  272, 
344- 

Harrison,  —  (Johnson’s  uncle),  i.  139. 
Hart,  J.,  i.  30. 

Hartley,  David,  M.D.,  ii.  304. 
Harwood,  Dr.  Edward,  ii.  61,  429. 
Harwood,  Rev.  Thomas,  ii.  410  77. 
Hastings,  Warren,  ii.  22,  362. 

Hatch,  Rev.  Edwin,  D.D.,  ii.  198  n. 
Hawkesworth,  John,  LL.D.,  Adven¬ 
turer,  i.  403 ;  Cook's  Voyages,  ii.  349  n. ; 
coxcomb,  ii.  298;  death,  i.  274;?.; 
Debates,  i.  380  ;  ii.  343  ;  dispute  with 
Hawkins,  ii.  80  ;  Ivy  Lane  Club,  i. 
388 ;  Johnson’s  early  life,  i.  166  ;  — 
wife,  i.  399;  ii.  102;  —  ‘school,’  ii. 
359  ;  manners,  i.  210  n. ;  Ode  on  Life, 

i.  360  n. ;  ii.  167. 

Hawkins,  Sir  Christopher,  ii.  22. 
Hawkins,  Henry,  ii.  139. 

Hawkins,  Sir  John,  Addison’s  style,  i. 

470  n. ;  Boswell,  ii.  144;  character,  ii. 
79-83,  297 ;  Devil  Tavern,  ii.  99 ; 
Essex  Head  Club,  ii.  221  n. ;  History 
of  Music,  ii.  79  ;  Ivy  Lane  Club,  i.  389 ; 
Johnson,  chemistry,  i.  420 ;  —  diary, 

ii.  86  n.,  129;  —  executor,  ii.  81, 
380  n.  ;  —  humour,  ii.  98  n. ;  —  Life , 

i. 357;  ii.  79-138,  346;  —  andMadan, 

ii.  267  n. ;  —  pension,  i.  418  ;  —  Tas- 
selas,  i.  471;  —  sacrament,  ii.  128; 
—  tea,  i.  414  n.;  — will,  ii.  12 1,  124, 
132,  148-50;  Literary  Club,  i.  230, 
420  ;  malignity,  i.  389,  395,  430,  440  ; 
ii.  155  n. ;  Porson,  ii.  81 ;  Richardson, 
ii.  190  n. ;  unclubable,  ii.  100  n. ;  Wal¬ 
ton,  ii.  468;  mentioned,  ii.  158-9,  204. 

Hawkins,  Lady,  ii.  140,  298. 

Hawkins,  Miss,  i.  440  n. ;  ii.  86  n., 
130  n.,  173  n.,  329  n.;  Anecdotes,  ii. 

1 39-144. 

Hawkins,  — ,  i.  138,  360. 

Hay,  Sir  George,  D.C.L.,  ii.  439. 

Hayes,  Rev.  Samuel,  i.  476. 

Hayley,  William,  ii.  420. 

Haynau,  Marshal,  ii.  218. 

Hayter,  Sir  George,  ii.  164  n. 

Hazlitt,  William,  ii.  72,  189  n. 


Head,  Sir  Francis,  i.  365  n. 

Hearne,  Thomas,  i.  133  n. 

Heath,  J.,  ii.  465. 

Heber,  Bishop  Reginald,  ii.  193  n. 

Heberden,  William,  M.D.,  i.  1 1 1 , 199  n., 
439>  445  5  7  136,  15°,  J54 

2  2  T  ,  311,  323,  386,  388,  399  n' 

Hector,  Edmund,  Johnson’s  school¬ 
fellow,  i.  101,  129  n.,  136  77.;  ii.  84; 
—  verses,  i.  167;  —  amanuensis,  i.  178, 
365  ;  —  boyhood,  i.  360  n. ;  —  at 
College,  i.  362  n. ;  —  oatmeal  break¬ 
fasts,  ii.  33472.;  mentioned,  i.  105-7; 
ii.  133,  27027. 

Hector,  George,  i.  129. 

Helvicus,  Christopher,  i.  136,  140. 

Henderson,  John  (of  Pembroke  Col¬ 
lege),  ii.  197. 

Henderson,  John  (the  actor),  ii.  77  n., 
318,  411. 

Henry  IV  of  France,  i.  134  n., 
273  72. 

Henry  VIII,  ii.  1. 

Henry,  Dr.  Robert,  ii.  90  n. 

Hercules,  i.  180. 

Hereford,  Dean  of,  ii.  32877. 

Hermit  of  Tenerijfe,  ii.  343. 

Herschel,  Sir  F.  W.,  i.  197  n. 

Hervey,  Lord,  i.  135  n. ;  ii.  105  77. 

Hervey,  Hon.  Henry,  i.  254  77. ;  ii. 
413-4. 

Hervey,  Hon.  Thomas,  i.  254  ;  ii.  114. 

Hissy,  ii.  54. 

History,  i.  201-3. 

History  of  the  Council  of  Trent ,  i. 
37°- 

Hoadley,  Bishop,  ii.  375. 

PIoarding,  i.  251. 

Hobbes,  Thomas,  ii.  287  77. 

Hodge,  i.  247  n.,  318. 

Hodges,  Dr.  Nathaniel,  i.  435  ;  ii.  90. 

Hody,  Dr.,  ii.  376. 

Flo  garth,  William,  Modern  Midnight 
Conversation,  i.  154,  359  ;  epitaph,  i. 
239  ;  Thrale,  Mrs.,  i.  240  ;  Johnson, 
i.  240-1  ;  ii.  400  77. ;  portrait  of  J. 
Porter,  i.  248  n. ;  genius,  ii.  288  n. 

Holbrook,  — ,  i.  138-9. 

Holland,  third  Lord,  ii.  421  77. 

Hollis,  Thomas,  i.  398  n.,  487  n. 

Holyday,  Barten,  ii.  387. 


486 


Index . 


Home,  John . Jeffrey,  Francis. 


Home,  John,  ii.  355  n. 

Homer’s  Iliad,  i.  332. 

Hool,  — ,  i.  137. 

Hoole,  John,  i.  114  n.;  ii.  124,  129, 
171  n.,  200,  324 11.,  362,  381,  385, 
388,  409,  455  n. ;  Anecdotes,  ii.  145- 
160. 

Hoole,  Mrs.,  ii.  150,  155-9. 

Hoole,  Rev.  Samuel,  ii.  152,  156-7, 
160. 

Hope,  i.  278  ;  ii.  1. 

Horace,  Odes,  i.  308  n. ;  ii.  86  n.,  337  ; 
Satires,  i.  5,  458;  ii.  18  n.,  234  n., 
346  ;  Epistles,  i.  358,  397,  434,  437 ; 
ii.  215,  373  ;  Johnson’s  scruple,  i.  93  ; 
metres,  ii.  407. 

Horne,  Bishop,  ii.  468. 

Horner,  Francis,  Johnson’s  style,  i. 
467  n. ;  John  Henderson,  ii.  197  w. 

Horseman,  — ,  i.  388. 

Horsley,  Bishop,  i.  106-7  5  ii-  221  n. 

Hottentot,  i.  384. 

Houghton,  Lord,  i.  259  n. 

Howard,  John,  ii.  32472. 

Hudson,  Thomas,  i.  240. 

Huet,  Bishop,  ii.  229  n.,  380. 

Humane  Society,  ii.  36. 

Hume,  Sir  Abraham,  ii.  24. 

Hume,  JDavid,  accused  of  grossness,  ii. 
32022.;  America,  ii.  53  72.;  attacks,  i. 
271  72. ;  civil  employments,  i.  1772.; 
confuted,  ii.  437  ;  copy- right,  ii.  442  n. ; 
eminent ,  i.  300  n. ;  History,  corrections, 
ii.  73  72. ;  — ,  payments  for,  ii.  349  n. ; 
infidel,  i.  211  n.  ;  ii.  12572. ;  Johnson, 
ii.  98  72. ;  King’s  chaplain,  ii.  67 ; 
king’s  evil,  i.  134  n. ;  Macpherson’s 
History,  ii.  39 ;  men  of  letters,  ii. 
104  72. ;  miracles,  i.  243  n. ;  pension, 
ii.  35572.;  purgatory,  i.  1472.;  Spenser, 
i.  190  72. ;  stories,  i.  225  nr,  style,  ii.  10, 
48;  suicide,  defence  of,  ii.  10;  men¬ 
tioned,  ii.  74,  298  72. 

Humfrey,  Rev.  Cave,  i.  12972. 

Humphry,  Ozias  R.,  Anecdotes ,  ii.  400-2. 

Hunt,  Leigh,  i.  371  n. ;  ii.  132  n. 

Hunter,  John,  ii.  no. 

Hunter,  William,  i.  103;  ii.  no. 

Hunter  —  (Johnson’s  schoolmaster),  i. 
140,  159,  361 ;  ii.  414,  426  72. 

Hunting,  ii.  170,  405. 


Hurd,  Richard,  Bishop  of  Worcester,  i. 

381  72.,  469  72. 

Husbands,  J.,  ii.  340. 

Hussey,  Rev.  John,  i.  82  n.,  184  72., 
217  72.,  257  72.,  372  72.,  373  72.,  374  72., 
384  72.,  406  72.  ;  ii.  6  72.,  7  72. 

Hutchinson,  Dr.  John  Hely,  ii.  183. 
Hutton,  William,  ii.  392  n. 

Hutton,  Rev.  W.  H.,  i.  12072. 

I. 

Idler,  i.  178,  415,  470;  ii.  107,  351. 
Imagination,  ii.  288. 

Improving  after  forty-five,  ii.  262. 
Improvisation,  i.  260  ;  ii.  10. 
Independent  Church,  ii.  218. 
Infinity,  i.  200. 

Influence,  ii.  55. 

Ingratitude,  i.  206. 

Innovation,  i.  345. 

Inns,  ii.  253. 

Innys,  William,  ii.  125. 

Ireland  and  Irish,  compared  with  the 
Scotch,  i.  427;  ii.  226;  disturbances 
in  1781,  ii.  54-7;  Johnson’s  kindness 
for  the  Irish,  ii.  41  72.;  scholars,  ii.  48  ; 
Wood’s  pence,  ii.  267  72. 

Irene,  i.  253  n.,  369,  386,  461 ;  ii.  9, 112, 

341- 

Irreparable,  i.  302. 

Irving,  Sir  Henry,  i.  304  n. 

Islington,  ii.  148. 

J- 

Jackson,  Dr.  Henry,  i.  89  n. 

Jackson,  Richard,  ii.  6. 

Jackson,  Thomas,  i.  135,  164  n. 
Jacobite  Lairds  of  Gask ,  ii.  466. 
Jamaica,  i.  30  n. ;  ii.  302  n. 

James  I,  ii.  70. 

James,  ‘King,’  i.  1 7 1  n.\  ii.  30672. 
James,  Rev.  John,  ii.  21  n.,  313  72. 
James,  Robert,  M.D.,  i.  166,  276,  41472.; 
ii.  45. 

Jansenists,  ii.  200. 

Jarvis,  Captain,  ii.  173. 

Jay,  Cyrus,  ii.  91  72. 

Jay,  Rev.  William,  ii.  207  n. 

Jebb,  Sir  Richard,  M.D.,  i.  331. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  ii.  2  n. 

Jeffrey,  Francis,  i.  230  72.;  ii.  59  n. 


Index. 


487 


Jeffry,  Miss . Johnson,  Samuel. 


Jeffry,  Miss,  ii.  49. 

Jenkins,  Henry,  ii.  336. 

Jenny,  the  dying,  i.  124. 

Jenny’s  Whim,  ii.  172. 

Jenyns,  Soame,  i.  200,  464. 

Jephson,  Robert,  ii.  46  n.,  182  n. 
Jesuits,  i.  215  ;  ii.  200. 

Joddrel,  R.  P.,  ii.  70,  221  n. 

Johnny  Armstrong ,  i.  480. 

Johnson,  Andrew  (Dr.  Johnson’s  uncle), 
i.  130  149,  359,  453. 

Johnson,  Avice,  i.  130  n. 

Johnson,  Catherine  (Dr.  Johnson’s  grand¬ 
mother),  i.  129  n. 

Johnson,  Edith,  i.  130  n. 

Johnson,  Elizabeth  (Dr.  Johnson’s  wife), 
account  of  her  by  Hawkins,  ii.  101 ; 

—  by  Johnson,  i.  247-50  ;  —  by  Miss 
Williams,  ii.  173  ;  critic,  i.  258  ;  death, 

i.  4  10-12,  59,  74,  84,  98,  257,  399  ; 

ii-  3 T7>  359,  360;  —  resolves  on  her 
coffin,  i.  25;  — ,  sermon,  i.  476;  — 
epitaph,  i.  399  ;  —  anniversary,  i.  14, 
16,  19,  21,  27,  38,  51,  77,  86,  106; 

—  commended,  i.  14,  15,  24,  29,  41, 
65,  80,  89,  107,  399 ;  fortune,  i.  367  ; 
Garrick’s  mimicry,  i.  248,  376 ;  ii. 
2 11  ;  Johnson’s  cup,  sells,  i.  135  ;  — , 
reported  separation  from,  i.  376;  jealous 
of  Molly  Aston,  i.  255  ;  lodgings  at 
Hampstead,  ii.  313;  portrait,  i.  248  n.; 
son,  ii.  173.  See  also  under  Johnson, 
wife. 

Johnson,  Elizabeth  (Reynolds’s  sister), 

ii.  456  n. 

Johnson,  Esther  (Stella),  ii.  331,  343  n. 
Johnson,  Isaac,  i.  134. 

Johnson,  Michael  (Dr.  Johnson’s  father), 
apprenticeship,  i.  130  birth,  i. 
129  n.,  150  n.  •,  ‘foolish  old  man,’  i. 
153  n. ;  ‘  gentleman,’  ii.  339  ;  Hector’s 
account  of  him,  ii.  84  n. ;  melancholy, 

i.  148,358;  ii.  257;  parchment  factory, 

ii.  422  ;  property,  i.  5,  363  ;  sheriff,  i. 
1 29,  359;  son’s  disobedience,  ii.  427  ; 
tea,  i.  135  ;  trade,  i.  133,  154;  vanity,  i. 
132,  139- 

Johnson,  Nathaniel  (Dr.  Johnson’s 
brother),  i.  23,  150,  152,  359. 
Johnson,  Samuel  (several  of  that  name), 
i.  130W.,  275,  305. 


Johnson,  Samuel,  Academy  at  Edial,  i. 
367  ;  accounts,  i.  32 ;  admirer  of  good¬ 
breeding,  ii.  1 14;  affectation,  freedom 
from,  ii.  299 ;  agriculture,  knowledge 
of,  ii.  1 17  ;  ancestry,  i.  129, 154,  211  n. ; 
Annals ,  i.  127-40;  ii.  86,  129,  379 
(see  infra  under  Journal)  ;  apolo¬ 
gized,  never,  for  external  circumstances, 
ii.  260 ;  Appleby  School,  i.  373  ;  ar¬ 
guing  (see  infra  under  Con  versation)  ; 
arithmetic,  i.  200  ;  attacks  (see  under 
Attacks)  ;  attendance  required,  i.  329, 
340  ;  authors,  assistance  to,  i.  103, 106, 
332  ;  ii.  7,  362  ;  — ,  begged  for  poor, 
i.  226,  228;  — ,  consulted  by,  ii.  192  ; 
autographs,  i.  4,  462  n. ;  ii.  460;  bath¬ 
ing,  ii.  428  ;  Beaconsfield,  visits,  i.  309; 
Bible,  studies  the,  i.  52,  39,  55,  59,  61, 
64,  81,  106-7;  —  believes  nothing  but 
it,  i.  241 ;  biographers,  i.  147,  165  ;  ii. 
379  ;  biography,  love  for,  i.  201  n ., 
451  ;  ii.  8  ;  Birmingham,  i.  139,  364  ; 
birth,  i.  129,  358;  birth-day,  i.  6,  47, 
67,  92,  100,  291  (see  also  under 
Prayers)  ;  blesses  Mr.  Barclay,  ii.  390 ; 
‘blinking  Sam,’  i.  313;  bookbinding, 
i.  361 ;  Bosworth  School,  i.  6,  364;  ii. 
340  n. ;  boxing,  i.  149  ;  bringing  him 
out,  ii.  233  ;  buffoonery,  i.  287  ;  bull, 
guilty  of  a,  ii.  314;  Caliban,  ii.  348; 
candid,  i.  357;  caricatured,  ii.  420; 
carriage,  love  of  a,  i.  329;  carving,  ii. 
298;  casuist,  ii.  366;  cat,  his,  i.  318  ; 
ceremonies,  i.  318;  chair,  ii.  380; 
characters  of  others,  i.  280,  347  ;  ii. 
270;  charity,  i.  204,  219,  226,  292, 
346,  457  n.,  458;  ii.  113,  168,  251, 
280,  285,  370,  378,  393,  402,  416; 
chemistry,  i.  307,  420,  439 ;  children, 
examined,  ii.  118  ;  — ,  indulged,  i.  159; 
—  putting  pennies  in  their  hands,  ii. 
251;  childish  amusements,  i.  287;  ii. 
396;  Church  of  England  man,  i.  210, 
297,  428,  456;  ii.  262,  369;  church 
attendance,  i.  30,  56,  81  ;  ii.  116,  319 ; 
classical  taste,  ii.  77,  364;  climbed  a 
gate,  ii.  415;  club  life,  i.  388;  com¬ 
plaints,  i.  199,  263;  ii.  140,  244,  361  ; 
compliments,  i.  286 ;  confessions  made 
to  him,  i.  299,  310  ;  Conversation, 
arguing  for  victory,  i.  105  n.}  376,  390, 


488 


Index. 


Johnson,  Samuel. 


452;  ii.  96,  222,  227,  231 ;  —  big 
words,  i.  344 ;  —  books,  not  from,  ii. 
23522.;  —  contradictions,  i.  299,  321, 
450;  ii.  137,  367;  —  described  by 
Cumberland,  ii.  76,  and  by  Hogarth,  i. 
240;  — didactic,  ii.  165  ;  — dogmatic, 
ii.  92  ;  initial  sentences,  ii.  142  ;  — 

—  life  of  talk,  i.  160,  308 ;  ii.  352  ; 

—  loud  voice,  i.  347,  451  ;  —  novelty, 
ii.  19;  —  presides,  ii.  97;  —  real 
opinion  not  given,  i.  185  ;  ii.  218,  356; 

—  runts,  would  talk  of,  ii.  365  n. ;  — 
silent  till  drawn  out,  i.  160,  289,  347  n.; 
ii.  184,  255,  405  ;  —  story-telling,  i. 
265;  —  talked  his  best,  ii.  96,  221  ; 

—  without  effort  best,  i.  273,  324,  329, 
469  ;  —  writings,  like  his,  i.  348  n. ; 
ii.  92,  391 , 401  ;  —  better  than  his  writ¬ 
ings,  ii.  220 ;  — wrong  side,  ii.  34  n. ; 

—  youth,  in,  i.  155,  361;  ii.  208; 
country -life,  i.  322;  ii.  353;  courage, 

i.  224,  330  ;  court  mourning,  ii.  191 ; 
credulity,  ii.  112;  critic,  i.  465,  469, 
477;  ii.  345,371;  critical  of  behaviour, 

ii.  275  ;  curiosity,  ii.  376  ;  daily  life,  ii. 
93,  1 15,  120  ;  dancing,  i.  212  ;  ii.  52  ; 
deafness,  i.  319,  329;  death,  dread  of, 

i.  101  n.,  1 16,  209,  224,  275-7,  33°> 

439>  445,  448  ;  69,  126-7, 135, 

156,  202,  224,  337,  394,  399;  —  his  last 
days,  i.  443  n.,  444-8;  ii.  7,  122-36, 
146-60,  163,  169,  203-6,  336,  382-8, 
398,  413;  —  his  death  agitated  the 
public,  i.  356 ;  debts,  i.  413  ;  ii.  323  ; 
dedicated,  never,  i.  405  ;  diary  (see 
infra,  Journal)  ;  dictionary-maker,  i. 
260  ;  diet,  i.  94;  discrimination,  fond  of, 

ii.  236  n. ;  distinction,  disliked  desire  of, 

i.  286  ;  doctor,  degrees  of,  i.  423 ;  ii. 
350 ;  doing  good  every  day,  ii.  429 ; 
dreams,  i.  159  ;  dress,  i.  241,  307, 

345  n->  386;  ^  75,  io3,  J39,  26°,  389, 
401  ;  — ,  critical  of,  i.  336-8 ;  ii.  275  ; 
Dutch,  studies,  i.  68 ;  Easton  Mauduit, 

ii.  217,  441  ;  eating,  i.  209,  217,  249, 
328,  371  n. ;  ii.  61,  64,  75,  105,  184, 
210,  298,  336,  405;  echoing  his  senti¬ 
ments,  i.  320  ;  election  halloo,  i.  292  ; 
elephant,  compared  to  an,  i.  287 ;  em¬ 
phasis,  dislike  of,  i.  273  ;  enemies, 
wonders  he  has,  i.  170;  exaggeration, 


hatred  of,  i.  208  ;  excellence,  i.  235, 
296;  exercise,  i.  288,  320;  ii.  94; 
fame,  anxiety  about,  ii.  42,  227 ;  family , 

i.  132,  139,  148,  150,  349  n.,  359 
fasting,  i.  28,  38-9,  53,  59,  63,  71,  72, 
75,  78,  83,  87,  97,  209,  450;  feeling 
for  others,  i.  205,  230,  252,  267,  276-7 ; 

‘  fiddle-de-dee,’  ii.  420  ;  flattery,  i.  273  ; 

ii.  178-9,  189,  224,  319;  fought  his 
way,  ii.  244  ;  fox-hunting,  i.  287  ; 
French,  knowledge  of,  i.  216  n.,  334; 
friend,  as  a,  i.  180,  226,  230,  236,  279, 
421,  458  ;  ii.  167,  41 1 ;  friendship  kept 
in  repair,  ii.  69  n. ;  fruit,  love  of,  i. 
217;  funeral,  i.  448;  ii.  136,  379; 
future,  the,  i.  252  ;  Gelaleddin,  i.  178  ; 
gentleman,  respect  for  a,  i.  254 ;  gesti¬ 
culations,  i.  162,  367,  451 ;  ii.  142,  222, 
274,  297,  338  ;  ghosts  (see  infra  super¬ 
natural  world) ;  good  qualities  of  others, 
ii.  424  n.;  grave,  ii.  133,  378;  gravity, 

i.  225;  great,  meeting  the,  ii.  68  n. ; 
Greek,  i.  69,  77,  8972.,  183;  ii.  363; 
HABITATIONS,  Bolt-Court,  ii.  1 19;  — 
—  Edial,  i.  368 ;  —  Gough  Square,  i. 
383  ;  —  Gray’s  Inn,  i.  416  ;  —  Green¬ 
wich,  i.  373  ;  —  Grosvenor  Square,  ii. 
192  n .;  —  Inner  Temple  Lane,  i.  416  ; 

ii.  38,  108;  —  Johnson’s  Court,  i.  420; 
ii.  1 1 5  ;  —  household  furniture  and 
economy,  i.  66n.}  416,  418;  ii.  115, 
141,  259,  400  ;  —  inmates,  i.  205,  292  ; 
ii.  217,  41 1 ;  Hamlet,  alarmed  by,  i. 
158 ;  hare,  let  one  escape,  ii.  397 ; 
health,  as  an  infant,  i.  131,  133  ;  in 
1756,  i.  19;  in  1766-7,  i.  33  n.,  44, 
234,  288,  423;  in  1768,  i.  48-9;  in 
1769,  i.  50;  in  1770,  i.  52  ;  in  1771,  i. 
56  ;  in  1773,  i.  64,  67;  in  1 776,  ii.  449 ; 
in  1777,  i.  80 ;  in  1778,  i.  86;  in  1779, 
i.  88;  in  1780,  i.  93-4;  in  1782,  i. 
102,  198,  224,  330;  ii.  196;  in  1783, 

i.  hi,  113,  438,  440;  ii.  5,  201,  454; 
in  1784,  i.  441 ;  ii.  122,  457  (see  supra 
under  death) ;  —  operated  on  himself, 

ii.  134,  386,  407;  —  physic,  dabbler 
in,  ii.  108,  323  ;  heard  pronounced 
heerd,  ii.  418;  Hebrew,  ii.  364; 
hiding,  said  to  be  in,  i.  375 ;  history,  i. 
201,  451  ;  Holof ernes,  i.  270  ;  Hotten¬ 
tot,  not  the  respectable,  i.  384 ;  ii. 


Index. 


489 


Johnson,  Samuel. 


348  n.  ;  household,  see  supra  under 
habitations  ;  humility,  i.  296  ;  humour, 
vein  of,  i.  226,  269,  287,  345,  452, 
468 ;  ii.  98,  182,  185 ;  — ,  good,  ii. 
179,  186,  188;  — ,  severe,  i.  242,  339, 
357;  —  better  after  dinner,  ii.  390; 
hypocrisy,  not  suspicious  of,  ii.  225  ; 
ignorance,  ii.  223  ;  impransus ,  i.  375  ; 
improvisations,  i.  194,  259,  281 ;  in¬ 
credulity,  i.  241-4;  indolence,  i.  5,  28, 
71,  74,  86,  178,  409;  ii.  115,  120; 
infidels,  aversion  for,  i.  21 1;  ii.  370; 
influenced  by  Thrale,  i.  241,  338  ;  in¬ 
heritance,  i.  5 ;  innovations,  i.  349 ; 
Italian,  i.  77,  99  ;  Italy,  proposed  visit 
to,  i.  263;  ii.  71,  187,  447;  jocular 
speeches,  ii,  271  ;  journal,  i.  14  n.,  64, 
81  n.,  127,  450  (see  supra  under 

Annals )  ;  jumping,  ii.  396  ;  king’s 
evil,  touched  for,  i.  133,  152,  360;  ii. 
338;  knowledge,  love  of,  ii.  19;  — 
general,  i.  155,  181  ;  ii.  118;  —  of 
manufactures,  ii.  325  ;  —  of  surgery,  ii. 
387  ;  —  of  digestion,  ii.  405 ;  —  in 
ready  cash,  ii.  365 ;  late  hours,  i.  231  ; 
ii.  19,  99,  326 ;  Latin  epigrams,  ii.  123, 
154;  Latinity,  i.  215,  416,  459;  ii.  3; 
laugh,  ii.  71 ;  lawyer,  wish  to  be  a,  ii. 
362  ;  lemonade,  ii.  69,  100  ;  letters, 
ii-  363  ;  —  to  Allen,  Rev.  Mr.,  ii.  451 ; 

—  Compton,  Rev.  J.,  ii.  453 ;  —  Hay, 
Dr.,  ii.  439  ;  —  Jones,  Griffith,  ii.  454  ; 

—  Lye,  Rev.  E.,  ii.  441 ;  Macpherson, 
J.,  ii.  446  ;  —  Percy,  Dr.,  ii.  440-1  ; 

—  Porter,  Lucy,  ii.  450  ;  —  Reynolds, 
Frances,  ii.  448-50,  453,  455  ;  —  Rich¬ 
ardson,  S.,  ii.  435-9  ;  —  Sastres,  F.,  ii. 
454 ;  —  Strahan,  W.,  ii.  442  ;  — 
Taylor,  Dr.,  ii.  447,  452  ;  —  Thrale, 
H.  M.,  ii.  451 ;  —  name  not  given,  ii. 
447;  levee,  i.  414;  ii.  121,365;  library, 

i.  25;  ii.  361,  380;  living,  declines  a, 

ii.  107,  361 ;  logician,  i.  452;  madness, 
dread  of  (see  infra  under  melancholy) ; 
mankind,  thought  well  of,  ii.  9 ;  — , 
knowledge  of,  ii.  1 18 ;  marriage,  i.  249, 
367  ;  ii.  360 ;  melancholy  and  mental 
disorders,  i.  48,  58,  78,  1 1 7,  148,  180, 

199,  34  L  4°9>  45 L  472  ;  ii.  97,  220, 
257>  281,  322,  338  ;  memory,  i.  68,  86, 
92,  225,  360;  ii.  87,  166-7,  252,  364, 


405;  metaphysics,  i.  201,  451;  mind 
ready  for  use,  ii.  220;  misses,  love  to 
see  a  knot  of  little,  i.  328  ;  music,  i. 
215;  ii.  103,  285,  308,  404;  mys¬ 
teriousness,  i.  326  ;  non-juror,  not  a,  ii. 
355  ;  nugarum  contemptor ,  ii.  376  ; 
nurse,  i.  130,  132  ;  obscenity  and  im¬ 
piety  repressed,  i.  453;  ii.  224;  ‘ob¬ 
stinate  rationality,’  i.  11 6  ?z.  ;  offence, 
easily  took,  i.  246  ;  offered  a  shilling, 
ii.  269;  old  age,  i.  84,  281;  opiates, 

i.  86,  88;  ii.  128,  156,  369;  orange 
peel,  use  of,  ii.  45  ;  order,  i.  25,  28,  33, 
70;  painting,  i.  214;  ii.  102,  286; 
Papist,  if  he  could  would  be  a,  i.  279  n. ; 
parlour,  company  for  the,  i.  293  ; 
parodies  (see  under  Parodies)  ;  pas¬ 
sions,  ii.  225,  227-8  ;  patience,  i.  267  ; 
Pembroke  College  (see  under  Oxford)  ; 
penance,  ii.  426  ;  penitents,  lover  of,  ii. 
1 14;  pension,  i.  62  n.,  112,  322,  417; 

ii.  1 1 5,  350,  355  ;  —  increase  solicited, 
i.  441  ;  ii.  150,  369,  388,  459  ;  per¬ 
son,  i.  149,  224,  344,  450,  458  ;  ii.  41, 
98,  164-5,  209,  3^6,  402  ;  philosophy 
studies,  i.  1 7  ;  physic  (see  supra  under 
health)  ;  piety  (see  infra  under  religion) ; 
please,  seeking  to,  i.  318,  454;  poetry, 
i.  460-4;  ii.  422;  politeness,  i.  169, 
45  L  453  ;  ^  65,  180,  260,  276,  402  ; 
Politian,  proposes  to  edit,  i.  365; 
political  writer,  i.  474;  politics,  modern, 

i.  203  ;  portraits,  i.  313,  342  ;  ii.  9, 
461 ;  post-mortem  examination,  ii.  136, 
388  ;  posterity,  best  known  to,  ii. 
395  J  poverty,  i.  135,  180,  371,  377, 
380,  413,  416;  ii.  88,  370;  praise, 
exaggerated,  i.  185,  214;  praiser,  par¬ 
simonious,  ii.  202  ;  prayers,  projected 
book,  i.  4, 1 1 9 ;  —  (see  under  Prayers)  ; 
praying  aloud  (see  infra ,  talking) ; 
prejudices,  ii.  226-7  ;  pride,  i.  451 ; 

ii.  93,  223;  profession,  bred  to  no,  ii. 
13  n. ;  professor,  ii.  361 ;  promptitude,  i. 
285  ;  prose,  i.  464-72  ;  Punic  war,  i. 
202;  quarrels,  i.  321,  339;  question 
enrages  him,  ii.  15 1  ;  quoting  him 
against  himself,  ii.  2  36  ;  ran  a  race,  ii. 
278,  396;  Rasselas,  like  characters  in, 
ii.  175,  220,  376;  reading,  learns  to 
read,  i.  152, 156;  —  amount  of,  i.  144, 


490 


Index. 


Johnson,  Samuel . Johnson,  William. 


181,  361,  363;  ii.  344;  —  mode  of, 

i.  319;  ii.  87,  142,  254;  —  rarely- 

read  a  book  through,  i.  332,  363 ;  — 
aloud,  i.  347,  457;  6,  254,  266, 

393  ;  religion,  told  of  a  future  state,  i. 
1 35,  163  ;  — read  Grotius,  i.  157  ;  and 
Clarke, ii.  305;  —  piety, i.  209,  223,  277, 

456  ;  ii.  58,  225,  257,  297 ;  —  respect 
for  pious  people,  i.  212  ;  —  dying  ex¬ 
hortations,  ii.  126,  146-7,  150-2,  157, 
169,  203,  206,  336,  387,  412  ;  —  (see 
under  Christianity  and  Prayers); 
resolutions,  i.  11,  16,  17,  25-6,  29-33, 
36,  40,  42,  54-5,  59, 61, 64,  66,  71,  80, 
88,  91-2,  94-5,  97,  99,  11 7 ;  rising,  i. 
33,  37,  41,  48,  67,  340;  rolls  down  a 
hill,  ii.  391  ;  romances,  ii.  441;  rough¬ 
ness,  i.  189,  242  n.,  346;  ii.  257,  265, 
280,  402;  —  repented  of,  i.  212,  244, 
286;  ii.  223,  263,  417;  —  gentle 
doings,  i.  296;  ii.  270  n.,  296  ;  —  pro¬ 
voked,  i.  308 ;  ii.  377 ;  —  charmed 
into  mildness,  ii.  89,  201 ;  —  in  early 
life,  ii.  259 ;  — surprised  at  giving  offence, 

ii.  281  ;  —  none  seen  by  Barclay,  ii. 
389 ;  sacrament,  i.  76,  84,  92  n.,  98  ; 
ii.  128;  satire,  dislike  of  general,  i.  223, 
327;  scenery,  i.  215,  322;  ii.  210; 
schemes  of  life,  i.  25,  80;  ‘  school,’  his, 
ii.  227,  230,  359;  school-days,  i.  136- 
I4°,  157,  r59>  36o;  ii.  84,  163,  395, 
414;  scruples,  i.  38,  40-1,  46,  93,  113, 
223,  300,  450;  sea-life,  ii.  376;  ser¬ 
mons,  i.  82,  476  ;  4  shown  off,’  i.  152  ; 
ii.  197  ;  sight,  i.  19,  130,  337,  344, 

457  ;  209,  275-7,  292,  298,  343; 

silver  coffee-pot,  i.  105  ;  —  cup,  i.  135  ; 
singularity,  dislike  of,  i.  221,  313; 
sleep,  i.  44,  80,  231;  ii.  123,  346; 
Sober ,  i.  178;  solitude,  i.  219,  231, 
440;  ii.  1 2 1,  221;  speaking  in  pub¬ 
lic,  ii.  362  n.,  392  ;  Staffordshire 
dialect,  ii.  375  n.,  418;  stands  by 
his  country,  i.  371  ;  story-telling,  i. 
226;  studied  behaviour,  i.  326  n. ; 
studies,  ii.  86,  105  (see  also  under 
Prayers);  style, i. 466-71 ;  subordina¬ 
tion,  i.  349;  supernatural  world,  i.  278, 
455  5  h.  354;  superstitions,  i.  450  w., 
455  ;  swarming,  ii.  278  ;  swearing  re¬ 
buked,  ii.  17,  45 278;  swimming, 


i.  224;  ii.  4;  talking  to  himself,  i.  439  ; 

ii.  216,  257,  273,  424;  tavern-chair,  ii. 
70,91;  tea,  i.  231,  414;  ii.  75,  105, 
120,  322,  364  ;  teacher,  a  great,  i.  269; 
tenderness,  i.  284, 435  ;  ii.  90, 185, 196, 
279;  theatre,  at  the,  i.  196;  ii.  318; 
thinking,  taught  the  art  of,  ii.  230 ; 
time,  computer  of,  ii.  19,  1 15 ;  Toryism, 
i.  172,  204,  456;  ii.  346;  tragedy- 
writer,  i.  368,  387;  ‘tranquil  uniform 
state,’  i.  310 ;  travelling,  love  of,  i.  263, 
330 ;  ii.  367,  376  ;  ‘  tremendous  com¬ 
panion,’  i.  285  n.,  454;  tricks  on  Mrs. 
Salusbury,  i.  235  ;  ii.  392  ;  truthfulness, 
i-  225,  297,  348,  458;  ii.  218,  223, 
428  ;  Ursa  Major ,  ii.  270;  useful,  love 
of  the,  i.  282  ;  Vanity ,  &c.,  tears  in 
reading  it  aloud,  i.  180;  voice,  i.  347, 
451;  ii.  232  n.,  277,  281;  vows  (see 
under  Vows)  ;  walk,ii.  139, 165,  273-5  ; 
wants  few,  i.  329 ;  watch,  ii.  8i>  117, 
295  ;  weather,  influence  of  (see  under 
Weather);  whistling,  ii.  41, 53  ;  wife 
(see  underJoHNSON, Elizabeth)  ;  will, 

i.  441  n.,  448  ;  ii.  122, 124-6, 132, 149, 
379>  383;  wine,  nse  of,  i.  25,  28,  209, 
217,  371  ;  ii.  45,  197,  321,  336,  375  ; 
winter,  liked,  i.  329;  women,  outcast, 
rescues  one,  ii.  16S  ;  — ,  talking  to,  ii. 
212,  326;  women,  society  of,  ii.  252, 
326  ;  Works,  list  of,  i.  304  n. ;  —  pro¬ 
jected,  ii.  372  ;  —  moral,  i.  272  ; 
world,  respect  for  it,  i.  221,  313,  315 ; 

—  knowledge  of  it,  i.  226,  253,  345  ; 

—  more  satisfied  with  it,  ii.  259  (see 
also  under  World)  ;  writing,  dislike 
of,  i.  178  ;  ii.  73  ;  —  for  money,  i.  18 1 ; 

ii.  90,  107;  —  mode  of,  i.  348,  425, 
446;  ii.  215,  414;  —  time  of,  ii.  328, 
346. 

Johnson,  Sarah  (Dr.  Johnson’s  mother), 
birth,  i.  150  n.\  character,  i.  151,  154; 
ii.  84  «. ;  death,  i.  22,  205 n.,  285,415  ; 
ii.  368;  family,  i.  154,  359;  general 
rules,  i.  161 ;  Johnson’s  childhood,  i. 
131-9,  159,  163;  —  ‘calls  Sam,’  i. 
278. 

Johnson,  Thomas,  i.  136. 

Johnson,  William  (Dr.  Johnson’s  grand¬ 
father'),  i.  129. 

Johnson,  William,  i.  130;;. 


Index . 


49 1 


Johnson,  William . Language. 


Johnson,  William,  of  Torrington,  ii. 
279  72.,  404  n. 

Johnson,  Mrs.  (Reynolds’s  niece),  ii. 
4°4* 

Johnston,  Sir  James,  ii.  40922. 
Johnston,  W.,  i.  415. 

Jones,  Griffith,  ii.  454. 

Jones,  Philip,  ii.  19972. 

Jones,  Dr.  Trevor,  ii.  423. 

Jones,  Sir  William,  projected  visit  to 
America,  i.  105  72. ;  Harrow  School,  i. 
161 72. ;  Johnson  praises  him,  i.  287  ; 
—  Western  Islands ,  ii.  6  ;  —  Greek,  ii. 
363;  Literary  Club,  ii.  26  7 2.,  137  n.  ; 
married,  ii.  200  ;  ‘  modesty  and  Greek,’ 
ii.  265. 

Jonson,  Ben,  Alchemist,  i.  306  n. ;  auto¬ 
graph,  i.  462  72.;  ‘  Bermudas,’  i.  218  72.; 
Devil  Tavern,  i.  433;  ‘  finding  neither 
ears  nor  mind,’  ii.  246  72. 

Jorden,  Rev.  William,  i.  164,  170,  362. 
Jortin,  Rev.  Dr.  John,  i.  366  n. ;  ii.  12, 
15  72.,  346,  431. 

Journey  to  the  Western  Islands ,  i.  427, 
475  ;  ii.  6,  42,  46,  178,  210,  368. 
Jowett,  Rev.  Benjamin,  ii.  98  n. 
Junius,  Francis,  ii.  214. 

Junius ,  i./72,  20372.,  475;  ii.  41.  f 
Justin  Martyr,  ii.  430. 

Juvenal,  i.  29572.,  372,  386,  44372., 
460 ;  ii.  166,  339,  387. 

K. 

Kames,  Lord  (Henry  Home),  i.  255  n. ; 
ii.  16,  372. 

Kearney,  Dr.  John,  ii.  30  n. 
Kearsley,  G.,  Anecdotes,  ii.  161-70. 

KEATE,  - ,  i.  32  2  72. 

Keith,  Admiral  Viscount,  ii.  451  7 2. 
Kelly,  Hugh,  i.  181,  432  ;  ii.  6,  352  7 2. 
Kemble,  John,  i.  234  n. ;  ii.  248  n. 
Kempis,  Thomas  a,  ii.  13,  153. 
Kennedy,  Rev.  Dr.  John,  ii.  392. 
Kennicott,  Rev.  Benjamin,  D.D.,  ii. 
201. 

Kenrick,  William,  ii.  50. 

Kent,  Duke  of,  ii.  64,  208. 

Kett,  Francis,  ii.  388  n. 

Kilby,  Rev.  Mr.,  ii.  430. 

Kilmorey,  Lord,  i.  255. 

King,  Dr.  William,  ii.  381. 


King,  W.  P.,  i.  317  n. 

King’s  evil.  See  under  Johnson. 
Kippis,  Dr.  Andrew,  i.  482  72.;  ii.  398. 
Knaptons,  the  booksellers,  ii.  357. 
Kneller,  Sir  Godfrey,  ii.  5  n. 

Knight,  Captain,  i.  335. 

Knight,  Charles  (the  author),  i.  218  n. 
Knight,  Sir  Charles,  ii.  171  72. 

Knight,  Cornelia,  ii.  171  n.,  176. 
Knight,  Lady,  Anecdotes ,  ii.  171-6. 
Knolles,  Richard,  i.  461. 

Knowledge,  general,  i.  155,  361 ; 

everyday,  i.  281,  324;  all  valuable, 
ii.  19  72. ;  irregular,  ii.  302. 

Knox,  John,  i.  428. 

Knox,  John,  author  of  a  Tour,  &c.,  ii. 
105  72. 

Knox,  Rev.  Dr.  Vicesimus,  ii.  313  72. 
Kovalevsky,  Professor,  ii.  147  n. 

L. 

La  Serva  Padrona,  ii.  410. 

Lace,  i.  253. 

Lade,  Sir  John,  i.  213,  2S1  ;  ii.  152. 
Lamb,  Charles,  Mrs.  Barbauld,  i.  157  72. ; 
Milton’s  Defence,  i.  485  n. ;  Beauties, 
ii.  2  72. ;  punning,  ii.  18  72. ;  Rowe,  ii. 
142  72. ;  Hoole,  ii.  145  ;  Henderson, 
ii.  198  72. ;  Fleet  Street,  ii.  302  n. 
Lambeth  Marsh,  i.  375. 

Lang,  Andrew,  i.  89  72. 

Langdon,  — ,  ii.  447. 

Langley,  Rev.  Mr.,  ii.  452. 

Langton,  Bennet,  Boswell  rebuked,  i. 
87  72.;  Burke  in  dispute,  ii.  23  72.; 
children,  i.  154  n. ;  Collectanea,  ii.  26  ; 
described  by  Best,  ii.  390 ;  Johnson’s 
bequest,  ii.  150  ;  —  death,  i.  445  n.  ; 
ii.  127,  134,  152,  154-5,  157-9,  225> 
385,  407 ;  —  draws  his  character,  ii. 
271;  —  roll,  ii.  391;  —  portrait,  i. 
459  72. ;  ii.  9  ;  —  values  him,  i.  198  ;  — 
visits  him,  i.  112  72.;  talk,  ii.  235  72.; 
Literary  Club,  i.  230,  420;  mentioned, 
i.  32  72.,  83,  104,  106;  ii.  22,  30,  52, 
129,  188,  192,  194,  439  72. 

Langton,  old  Mr.,  ii.  107  n.,  299  72., 
361. 

Langton  in  Lincolnshire,  i.  286  72., 
291 ;  ii.  391. 

Language,  knowledge  of,  ii.  31 1. 


492 


Index. 


Lansdowne,  third  Marquis  of. . Longinus. 


Lansdowne,  third  Marquis  of,  i.  229  n. 

Lapse ,  i.  140. 

Larmessin,  i.  245  n. 

Latin,  i.  303  n. 

Latin  Poetry,  modern,  i.  365. 

La  Trobe,  ii.  158,  205. 

Laud,  Archbishop,  i.  120,  461. 

Lauder,  William,  i.  393-9 ;  ii.  366. 

Laughter,  ii.  287. 

Lavater,  ii.  164. 

L’Avocat,  Abbe,  ii.  2. 

Law,  i.  223;  ii.  20. 

Law,  William,  i.  363  n. ;  ii.  305  n. 

Lawrence,  Dr.  French,  ii.  24,  30,  32. 

Lawrence,  Thomas,  M.D.,  Johnson’s 
physician,  i.  102,  198;  ii.  1 1 2  ;  — en¬ 
deared  to,  i.  104;  —  Ode,  i.  460; 
De  Temper amentis,  i.  103,  106 ;  men¬ 
tioned,  i.  278 ;  ii.  9,  109,  no  n. 

Le  Clerc,  Mrs.,  i.  44. 

Lease,  W.  Keith,  ii.  466,  468. 

Lee,  Arthur,  ii.  403. 

Lee,  Nathanael,  ii.  62  n. 

Lee,  Alderman  William,  i.  204  n. 

Leeds,  Duke  of,  i.  253  n. 

Leek,  i.  130  n. 

Leibnitz,  i.  374,  480. 

Leland,  Dr.  Thomas,  ii.  29. 

Lennox,  Charlotte,  i.  102  ;  ii.  99. 

Lennox,  Lady  Sarah,  ii.  31  n. 

Leon  1,  a  singer,  ii.  69. 

Leslie,  C.  R.,  ii.  219,  269  n. 

Letters,  ii.  143,  153. 

Lettsom,  J.  C.,  M.D.,  Anecdotes,  ii.  402. 

Leveson,  Edward  J.,  ii.  380  n.,  461  n. 

Leveson,  Miss,  ii.  461  n. 

Levett,  John,  ii.  395. 

Levett,  Robert,  daily  life,  i.  420  ;  Haw¬ 
kins’s  account  of  him,  ii.  108-12,  115  ; 
death,  i.  102,  438;  ii.  337  n. ;  John¬ 
son’s  lines,  i.  227;  ii.  236  n.,  250, 
293,  373  5  mentioned,  i.  98,  100,  205 
n.,  248,  304  n.  ;  ii.  259  n.,  361  n., 
41 1  n. 

Lewis  XIV,  i.  189;  ii.  354. 

Lewis,  Dean,  ii.  408. 

Lexiphanes,  i.  407. 

Libels,  i.  275  ;  ii.  35-6. 

Lichfield,  the  Riding,  i.  130;  George 
Lane,  i.  130;  drinking,  i.  139  n. ;  inns, 
i.  337;  Cathedral,  ii.  71;  Cathedral 


Library,  i.  444 n. ;  population,  ii.  1 17  n. ; 
Johnson’s  house,  ii.  125,  132,  340,  379 
n. ;  —  praise  of  it,  ii.  410  ;  —  willow, 
ii.  423;  school,  ii.  163,  396;  pro¬ 
nunciation,  ii.  375  n.;  Green’s  museum, 
ii.  397;  Toryism,  ii.  410  n. ;  palace, 
ii.  417. 

Lichfield,  Earl  of,  ii.  362  n. 

Life,  a  noiseless  one,  i.  151  ;  made  up 
of  little  things,  i.  208  ;  vacuity,  i.  251  ; 
low,  i.  253  ;  art  of  living,  i.  324  ;  its 
trappings,  i.  345  ;  miseries,  ii.  256, 
360.  See  also  under  World. 

Lillo,  George,  i.  386  n. 

Lindsay,  Lady  Charlotte,  i.  105  n. 

Lindsey,  — ,  i.  428  n. 

Lisbon,  i.  244. 

Literary ,  i.  229. 

Literary  Magazine ,  i.  398,  413. 

Literary  man,  i.  238  n. 

Literature,  i.  281,  295. 

Little  Britain,  i.  134. 

Liverpool,  first  Earl  of,  ii.  283,  418. 

Lives  of  the  Poets ,  bargain  and  payment, 
i.  78,  1 81  n.,  433  ;  ii.  357  ;  progress, 

i.  86,  88,  94,  96,  437;  ii.  193;  not 
selected  by  Johnson,  i.  272  n. ;  his 
pleasure  in  the  work,  i.  298 ;  truths 
in  later  Lives ,  i.  188  ;  truth  not  sup¬ 
pressed,  ii.  3 ;  assistance  of  booksellers, 

ii.  70;  —  of  Steevens,  ii.  371  ;  criti¬ 
cized  by  Murphy,  i.  477-87  ;  Life  of 
Spenser ,  ii.  192  ;  presented  to  John¬ 
son’s  doctors,  ii.  399 ;  part  written  at 
Lichfield,  ii.  414. 

Lobo,  Jerome,  i.  365. 

Locke,  John,  autographs,  i.  462  n.  ; 
round-about  sense,  i.  467  n.  ;  admired 
Blackmore,  ii.  314  n. ;  leading  people 
to  talk,  ii.  365  ;  copyright,  ii.  443  n. 

Locker-Lampson,  Mr.,  i.  99  n.\  112  n., 
1 13  n.y  1 15  n. 

Lockhart,  John  Gibson,  i.  233  n. 

London,  healthy,  i.  289;  house-rent, 
ii.  94  n. ;  immensity,  ii.  97  ;  Johnson’s 
love  for  it,  i.  324;  ii.  302  ;  magnitude, 
ii.  44;  no  public  library,  i.  425  n. ;  no 
rendezvous  for  men  of  letters,  ii.  104  n. 

London,  i.  372,  460 ;  ii.  341,  371. 

London  Magazine ,  i.  377  n. 

Longinus,  i.  112. 


Index . 


493 


Longitude . Malone,  Edmond. 


Longitude,  i.  402. 

Longworth,  Mrs.,  i.  138. 

Lopez  de  Vega,  i.  193. 

Loplolly,  i.  335. 

Lord’s  Prayer,  i.  103. 

Lort,  Rev.  Dr.,  i.  305  n. 

Lotteries,  ii.  31. 

Loughborough,  Lord.  See  Wedder- 
burne. 

Louvois,  i.  270  n. 

Love,  i.  290  ;  ii.  393. 

Lowe,  Mauritius,  i.  106-7  5  &  I4^. 

Lower  ranks,  i.  318. 

Lowth,  Robert,  Bishop  of  London,  i. 
366 ;  ii.  48. 

Lucan,  i.  152,  416. 

Lucan,  first  Earl  of,  ii.  32,  137  n. 

Lucan,  Lady,  ii.  421  n . 

Lucas,  Dr.  Charles,  ii.  428  n. 

Lucas,  Henry,  ii.  412. 

Lucian,  ii.  405. 

Lunge ,  ii.  77. 

Lungs,  i.  306. 

Luttrell,  Colonel,  i.  425. 

Luxury,  ii.  97. 

Lydiat,  Thomas,  i.  461. 

Lye,  Rev.  Edward,  ii.  441. 

Lyell,  Sir  Charles,  i.  271  n. 

Lysons,  Samuel,  ii.  353  n. 

Lyttelton,  George,  first  Lord,  Life,  i. 
244,  257;  ii.  3, 193,  208,  37L  4I7*  42I5 
Hottentot,  i.  384  n.,  451  n.;  ii.  348  n.\ 
Pope,  ii.  332  ;  Thomson,  ii.  224 n. 

Lyttelton,  second  Lord,  i.  455  n. 

Lyttelton,  William  Henry  (Lord  West- 
cote),  ii.  209  n. 

Lytton,  first  Lord,  i.  437  n . 

M. 

Mably,  ii.  380. 

Macartney,  Earl  of,  ii.  32. 

Macaulay,  Catherine,  ii.  4,  11. 

Macaulay,  Rev.  Kenneth,  i.  83. 

Macaulay,  Lord,  association  of  authors, 
i.  437  n. ;  autographs,  i.  462  n. ;  Beau- 
clerk,  i.  273  n. ;  Boswell,  ii.  395  n. ; 
Bunyan,  i.  333  n. ;  Congreve,  i.  186  n. ; 
copyright,  ii.  445  n.  ;  Croker’s  Greek, 
i.  89  n. ;  English  Academy,  i.  436  n. ; 
Fox’s  India  Bill,  ii.  458  n. ;  French 
literature,  i.  216  n.\  Gibbon,  ii.  66  n. ; 


Hastings,  Warren,  ii.  22  n. ;  historians, 
ii.  345  n. ;  Johnson  and  Addison,  i. 
470  n. ;  —  Diary ,  i.  450  n. ;  — etymo¬ 
logies,  ii.  349  n. ;  —  and  history,  i.  202  n. ; 
—  household,  ii.  175  n.,  217  n. ;  — 
idleness,  i.  86  n. ;  —  Lives ,  i.  477  n., 
479  n. ;  —  Shakespeare ,  i.  474  n. ;  ii. 
358  n. ;  —  talk,  ii.  142  n.  ;  —  touch¬ 
ing  posts,  ii.  273  ;  —  travelling,  i. 
263  n. ;  —  Vanity  of  Human  Wishes , 
i.  461  n. ;  Literary  Club,  i.  229  n. ; 
memory,  i.  68  n. ;  morbidities,  i.  96  n. ; 
More,  Hannah,  ii.  177  n.;  North,  Lord, 
i.  104  n. ;  Paradise  Lost,  ii.  318  n. ; 
Rogers,  i.  287  n. ;  uncle,  ii.  88  n. ; 
War  burton,  i.  381  n. 

Macbean,  Alexander,  i.  61,  98. 
McCheane,  Robert,  i.  1 1 7  n. 
Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  Johnson  and 
metaphysics,  i.  201  n.  ;  —  Life,  ii. 
220  n. ;  Windham,  ii.  382  n. 
Macklin,  Charles,  ii.  2  n.,  317. 

Macky,  — ,  i.  72. 

Macleod,  Lady,  i.  268  n.,  409  n.  ;  ii. 
76  n.,  103  n. 

Macleod,  Laird  of,  i.  68  n. ;  ii.  3  n. 
Macpherson,  James,  i.  321,  431 ;  ii.  39, 
43,  74,  3 78  n->  446- 

McQueen,  Rev.  Donald,  i.  456  n. ;  ii. 
325  n. 

Madan,  Falconer,  i.  164  n. 

Madan,  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel,  ii.  211,  267. 
Madness,  ii.  8. 

Maffei  Vegio,  ii.  325. 

Magliabechi,  ii.  87,  141,  362,  366. 
Mahogany,  ii.  458. 

Mahomet  the  Great,  i.  462. 
Malherbe,  i.  466  n. 

Mallet,  David,  Bolingbroke’s  editor, 

i.  21 1  n.,  408;  ii.  315;  colloquial 
ability,  ii.  320;  verbal  criticism ,  i.  358. 

Malmesbury,  first  Earl  of,  ii.  71  n. 
Malone,  Edmond,  Bacon’s  Essays,  i. 
137  n.  ;  Boswell’s  debts,  ii.  32-4  ;  — - 
letters,  ii.  21-38  ;  Garrick,  ii.  245  n. ; 
Gibbon’s  death,  ii.  67  n.  ;  Hawkes- 
worth,  ii.  298  n. ;  Hawkins,  i.  389  n.  ; 

ii.  80,  83 ;  Johnson’s  gentleness,  ii. 
377  n •  5  —  Lives,  i.  483  n.  ;  ii.  3  n ., 
357  n' ;  —  solitude,  ii.  344  n. ;  Literary 
Club,  i.  229  n. ;  ii.  25  n.,  26  n. ; 


494 


Index . 


Malone,  Edmond . Monckton,  Hon.  Miss. 


lottery,  ii.  31,  37;  Piozzi’s  Anecdotes , 

i.  143  ;  Reynolds’s  executor,  ii.  24  n.  ; 
Shakespeare ,  ii.  23-5  ;  33  n.,  36,  358  n. ; 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  ii.  30  n. 

Maltby,  W.,  ii.  72. 

Man,  corrupt  by  nature,  ii.  285. 
Mandeville,  Bernard,  i.  207,  268  ;  ii. 
20. 

Mandeville,  Sir  John,  ii.  387. 
Mansfield,  first  Earl  of,  Dr.  Dodd,  ii. 
283  n. ;  flattered  Garrick,  ii.  241  n.  ; 
little  learning,  ii.  143  ;  satires  on  dead 
kings,  ii.  35  n.\  slaves,  ii.  440;  Wilkes, 
ii-  373- 

Manteau ,  i.  338. 

Marchetti,  ii.  387. 

Marchmont,  fourth  Earl  of,  ii.  4. 
Marclew,  alias  Bellison,  i.  130. 
Maria  Theresa,  ii.  35  n. 

Marillac,  ii.  306  n. 

Markham,  Archbishop,  i.  105  n. 
MARKLAND,  Jeremiah,  i.  315. 

Marlay,  Richard  (Bishop  of  Clonfert), 

ii.  26  n.,  32,  137  n. 

Marlborough,  first  Duke  of,  i.  174. 
Marmor  Norfolciense,  i.  375  ;  ii.  346. 
Marriages,  late,  i.  153,  propagating 

understanding,  i.  213  ;  for  a  mainten¬ 
ance,  i.  316 ;  objects  in  marrying,  ii.  8. 
Marseilles,  Bishop  of,  i.  435. 
Martial,  i.  188,  374  n. ;  ii.  77  n. 
Martin,  M.,  i.  432. 

Martin,  a  butcher,  i.  475  n. 
Martineau,  Harriet,  Johnson’s  death, 
i.  356  n. ;  Wealth  of  Nations,  ii.  424  n. 
Masenius,  i.  394. 

Mason,  Rev.  William,  i.  169;  ii.  321  n. 
Massillon,  ii.  297  n. 

Mather,  J.,  ii.  85. 

Matthews,  Charles,  ii.  72. 

Matthews,  — ,  i.  292  «. 

Maty,  Mathew,  ii.  181  n. 

Maty,  Paul  Henry,  i.  237  n. ;  ii.  181  n ., 

379- 

Maundy  Thursday,  i.  70. 

Maxwell,  Rev.  Dr.,  i.  293  n.  ;  ii.  96  n., 

t°5  n->  39 7- 
Mayne,  — ,  ii.  39. 

Mead,  Dr.,  ii.  377. 

Melancholy,  ii.  322  n.  See  under  John¬ 
son. 


Memory,  ii.  287,  308,  425. 

Mendoza,  i.  475. 

Merlin,  — ,  i.  106. 

Metaphysical,  i.  252  n.,  477 ;  ii.  443  n. 
Metaphysics,  ii.  407. 

Metastasio,  i.  261. 

Metcalfe,  Philip,  ii.  30,  388. 
Methodist,  a,  i.  30,  35. 

Meyer,  Jeremiah,  ii.  330. 

Meynell,  ‘Old,’  ii.  226  n. 

Meynell  family,  ii.  392  n. 

M'Ghie,  William,  M.D.,  i.  389. 

Mickle,  William  Julius,  ii.  3 77  n. 
Middleton,  Rev.  Conyers,  D.D.,  ii.  8  n., 
66  n. 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  ii.  200  n. 

Millar,  Andrew,  i.  71,  297  n.,  383  n., 
408  n.,  413,  430 ;  ii.  5,  374,  436,  438. 
Miller,  Sir  John,  ii.  47. 

Miller,  J.  Dewitt,  i.  404  n . 

Mills,  Rev.  Mr.,  i.  304  n. 

Milman,  Dean,  ii.  123  n.,  153  n. 
Milner,  Joseph,  ii.  66  n. 

Milton,  John,  blank  verse,  ii.  332  ;  copy¬ 
right,  ii.  443  n. ;  death,  i.  150  n.  ;  ii. 
379;  Dryden’s  epigram,  i.  196;  equal 
to  his  character,  ii.  227  n. ;  Euripides, 
ii.  70;  father,  ii.  324  n.  ;  grand¬ 
daughter,  i.  396  ;  humble  dignity,  i. 
157  n->  Johnson’s  eulogium,  i.  216, 

395-7>  399  «•»  i65  5  —  Life>  i- 

483-7  ;  ii.  195,  372  ;  Latin  poems,  i. 
459  ;  Lauder’s  forgery,  i.  393  ;  ii.  366  ; 
pensieri  stretti,  i.  312  n. ;  prayer,  i. 
391  ;  projected  works,  ii.  379 ;  pro¬ 
perty,  ii.  379 ;  seeing  a  beautiful  lady, 
i.  373  n. ;  ‘  surly  republican,’  i.  456, 
484  ;  wine,  ii.  376  ;  L' Allegro  and  II 
Penseroso,  i.  198  n. ;  ii.  195,  346,  354 ; 
Areopagitica,  i.  483  n. ;  Comus,  i.  147 ; 
Paradise  Lost ,  i.  202,  256,  282,  292, 
439;  ii.  7  n.,  17,  102,  225  n.,  234, 
369  n.,  395  ;  Sonnets,  ii.  97. 

Mirror,  the,  ii.  351. 

Mitre  Tavern,  i.  124,  418;  ii.  91  n. 
Modena,  Duke  of,  i.  194. 

Moli^re,  i.  334,  373  n. 

Monasteries,  i.  210,  303. 

Monboddo,  Lord  (James  Burnet),  i. 

201  n.,  344  n.,  451  n. ;  ii.  375  n. 
Monckton,  Hon.  Miss,  ii.  194,  202. 


Index. 


495 


Money . Napier,  Sir  William. 


Money,  ii.  303. 

Monney,  — ,  ii.  399. 

Montagu,  Elizabeth,  Bunyan,  i.  332  n. ; 
delicacy,  i.  326 ;  dress,  i.  338  ;  Essay 
on  Shakespeare ,  i.  351  ;  ii.  307  ;  eulo- 
gium  by  Lord  Bath,  ii.  271  ;  flattered 
Garrick,  ii.  430  n\  Johnson  praised  by 
her,  i.  272;  —  praises  her,  i.  2S7; 
— ,  qnarrels  with,  ii.  193,  42 1 ;  —  and 
H.  More,  ii.  184-5;  parties,  ii.  58, 
181-2,  422  n. ;  pensions  Miss  Williams, 
ii.  172;  wit,  i.  226  n. ;  mentioned,  i. 
180  n. ;  ii.  61  «.,  416,  448. 

Montagu,  Lady  Wortley,  i.  319;  ii.  175. 

Montesquieu,  i.  188  n. 

Monthly  Review ,  ii.  47. 

Montmorenci,  Duke  of,  ii.  306. 

Moor  Park,  i.  195. 

Moore,  Rev.  Edward,  D.D.,  ii.  198  n. 

Moore,  Edward,  i.  405  n. 

Moore,  John,  Bishop  of  Ely,  i.  171  n. 

Moore,  John,  M.D.,  ii.  408. 

Moore,  Norman,  M.D.,  ii.  90  n. 

More,  Hannah,  Academy  Eloge ,  i.  435  n. ; 
Bas  Bleu,  ii.  59  n.,  201-2  ;  Blagden, 
ii.  24  n. ;  Boswell,  ii.  187,  206;  ‘  Bozzi 
subjects,’  i.  143;  conversation,  ii.  178; 
Fatal  Falsehood ,  ii.  1 3  n. ;  flattery,  i. 
273;  ii.  17972.,  182,  43072.;  gorgeous 
in  scarlet,  ii.  141  n.  ;  grandmother,  ii. 
18972.;  human  studies,  ii.  18822.; 
Johnson,  Anecdotes ,  ii.  177-207  ;  — 
asperities,  i.  32572.;  —  and  Barnard, 
ii.  263  72. ;  —  bred  to  no  profession, 
ii.  1372.;  —  death,  i.  35672.;  drawn 
out,  ii.  197  ;  —  and  Fielding,  ii.  190; 
—  her  guest,  ii.  186  ;  — introduced  to, 
ii.  178;  —  Jesuits,  ii.  200;  — meta¬ 
physical  distresses,  i.  477  72. ;  —  mild 
radiance,  ii.  297  n  ;  —  miserable  sin¬ 
ner,  ii.  15722.;  —  Pascal ,  ii.  194;  — 
Pembroke  College,  ii.  197,  461  ;  — 
Raynal,  i.  21 1 72. ;  —  Reynolds’s  Dia¬ 
logues,  ii.  23272.;  —  her  school,  ii. 
185  ;  —  Sir  Eldred,  ii.  184;  —  takes 
the  sacrament  with,  i.  11672. ;  —  will, 
ii.  125  72.;  letters,  ii.  191  72.;  libelled, 
ii.  20722.;  Macaulay,  Lord,  ii.  177; 
Montagu,  Mrs.,  ii.  181;  ‘Nine,’  ii. 
194  72.;  nurse,  ii.  177;  physicians, 
ii.  13622.;  Scotchmen,  i.  42722.;  men¬ 


tioned,  i.  102  72.,  322  72. ;  ii.  133  72.,  271. 
More,  Dr.  Henry,  ii.  338  22. 

More,  Sarah,  ii.  182. 

Morfill,  William  R.,  i.  1 1 7  72.,  37722.  ; 
ii.  368  72. 

Moritz,  C.  P.,  i.  275  n. 

Morris,  Miss,  ii.  159. 

Mortimer,  Rev.  Dr.  Charles,  ii.  407. 
Mortmain,  statute  of,  ii.  125,  12672. 
Morton,  — ,  i.  293  72. 

Muddy ,  i.  301. 

Mudge,  John,  i.  19472. 

Mudge,  Dr.  John,  ii.  419. 

Mudge,  Thomas,  ii.  117,  295. 

Mudge,  Rev.  Zachariah,  ii.  117,72.  1. 
Mulso,  Miss.  See  Chapone. 

Murphy,  Arthur,  debts  and  pension, 
i.  406  72. ;  dramatist,  i.  237  72. ;  Essex 
Head  Club,  i.  44022.;  ii.  22177.; 
Foote’s  Life,  ii.  240  72.  ;  Johnson, 
Boswell,  i.  427  ;  —  buffoonery,  i.  287  ; 
Debates,  i.  378 ;  —  Dodd  and  Kelly, 
i.  180;  —  epitaph  on  Mrs.  Salusbury, 

i.  237;  —  Essay  on,  i.  353-488 ;  ii. 
37 ;  —  Garrick,  ii.  50 ;  —  greatest 
pleasure,  ii.  45  ;  —  introduced  to,  i. 
306,  407;  —  Know  yourself,  i.  410; 
—  pension,  i.  418 ;  —  Rambler,  i. 
305-6;  —  style,  ii.  351  72.;  —  swear¬ 
ing,  ii.  17  22. ;  —  Thrale,  i.  232,  422  ; 
— ,  visits,  i.  439;  portrait,  i.  342  72.; 
Three  Weeks  after  Marriage,  ii.  449  ; 
Zenobia ,  i.  332  ;  mentioned,  ii.  44. 

Murray,  Earl  of,  ii.  468. 

Murray,  Dr.  James  A.  H.,  ii.  95  n. 
Musgrave,  Sir  Richard,  i.  342. 

Music,  ii.  301,  404. 

Musset,  Alfred  de,  ii.  191  n. 

Mutual,  ii.  21972. 

Myddelton,  Colonel,  i.  308  n.,  435  72. ; 

ii.  397. 

Myddelton,  Sir  Hugh,  i.  435. 

Myrtle,  Verses  on  a  Sprig  of ,  i.  167. 
Mysteriousness,  i.  326  ;  ii.  1. 

N. 

Nails,  growth  of,  i.  47. 

Nairn e,  Edward,  ii.  69. 

Napier,  Sir  Charles,  ii.  31  n. 

Napier,  Hon.  George,  ii.  31  n. 

Napier,  Sir  William,  ii.  31  72. 


496 


Index. 


N  apkins . Oxford. 


Napkins,  i.  302  n. 

Nature,  ii.  431. 

Neate,  Harris,  i.  300  n. 

Needlework,  i.  328. 

Negroes,  i.  292. 

Nelson,  Lord,  i.  462  n. 

Nelson,  Robert,  i.  221  n. ;  ii.  305. 

New  River,  i.  435. 

Newbery,  John,  i.  156,  414. 
Newcastle,  second  Duke  of,  ii.  68  n. 
Newton,  Sir  Isaac,  converted  to  Chris¬ 
tianity,  ii.  306;  Johnson  and  Bosco- 
vitch,  i.  416;  music,  ii.  103  *2.;  un¬ 
married,  ii.  360;  Williams’s  scheme, 
i.  402. 

Newton,  John,  Bishop  of  Bristol,  ii. 
15  w. 

Nice  people,  i.  328. 

Niche ,  i.  336. 

Nichol,  Professor  John,  ii.  348  n. 
Nichols,  John,  Bozvyer's  Life ,  i.  444  ; 
Islington,  ii.  148  *2. ;  Johnson’s  Lives  of 
the  Poets ,  i.  178  ;  ii.  70  n.,  372  n.  ; 
—  death,  i.  297  n.,  445-7;  ii.  157, 
159;  Anecdotes,  ii.  409-13;  joyous,  ii. 
36 ;  Thirlby,  ii.  430 ;  mentioned,  i. 
370  n.,  380,  398;  ii.  123,  221  n., 
380  n. 

Nicholson,  ii.  31. 

Nicholson,  the  bookseller,  i.  133. 
Nicol,  George,  ii.  148. 

Nicolaida,  i.  103. 

Nollekens,  Joseph,  i.  85  n. ;  ii.  375. 
Nollekens,  Mrs.,  i.  85. 

Non-jurors,  ii.  355. 

Norgate,  — ,  i.  191  n. 

North,  Lord,  ministry  dissolved,  i.  104; 
*  influence,’  ii.  55  n. ;  Walpole  and 
Shippen,  ii.  305  ;  attacked,  ii.  310. 
North,  Roger,  i.  134  n.;  ii.  125  n. 
Northcote,  James,  i.  313  n.\  ii.  49  n., 
72,  179  n.,  248  n.,  288  n.,  454*2. 
Northumberland,  first  Duke  of,  ii.  67, 
208  n. 

Northumberland,  Countess  of,  ii. 
29  n. 

Norton,  Professor  Charles  Eliot,  ii. 
165  n. 

Novels,  i.  290. 

Nugent,  Dr.,  i.  210,  230,  420. 
Numbers,  round,  ii.  2. 


O. 

Oats,  ii.  334  n. 

Observer,  ii.  78. 

CE dipus,  ii.  62. 

Ogden,  Dr.  Samuel,  ii.  297  n. 
Oglethorpe,  General,  i.  402*2;  ii.  51, 

374  n‘ 

Old  age,  i.  84,  231,  281,  317,  329*2. 
Old  Maid,  The ,  ii.  351. 

Oliphant,  J.  L.  K.,  ii.  466. 

Oliver,  Dame,  i.  157  *2. 

Omai,  ii.  292. 

Onslow,  Arthur,  ii.  251*2.,  381. 
Openness,  i.  326. 

Oracle ,  The ,  ii.  36,  144  n. 

Oratorio ,  i.  196. 

Ord,  Mrs.,  ii.  191. 

Orrery,  fifth  Earl  of,  ii.  3  *2. 

Osborne,  Thomas,  i.  304,  380,  418;  ii. 

74>  347* 

Ossian.  See  Macpherson,  James. 
Ossory,  Earl  of,  ii.  241  n. 

Ossory,  Lord,  ii.  23,  26,  32. 
Ostervald,  ii.  118. 

Otway,  Thomas,  i.  385  *2.,  435. 

Otway,  Mrs.,  i.  124. 

Oughton,  Sir  Adolphus,  ii.  356*2. 
Overstone,  Lord,  i.  230*2. 

Owen,  Colonel,  i.  171  n. 

Oxford,  first  Earl  of,  i.  436. 

Oxford,  second  Earl  of,  i.  380. 

Oxford,  Clarendon  Press,  i.  382*2.; 
common  rooms,  ii.  199*2.;  disloyalty, 

i.  1 71 ;  dinner-hour,  ii.  93  n. ;  Fellows, 
ii*  3r3 ;  Johnson’s  love  for  it,  i.  168; 
morning  chapel,  i.  49  *z. ;  riding-house, 

ii.  53 ;  sconces,  i.  164  *2. ;  servitors,  ii. 
88  ;  Jesus  College,  ii.  197  *z.,  199, 400 ; 
Pembroke  College,  Dr.  Adams’s 
portrait,  ii.  461  n. ;  buttery-books,  ii. 
313  22.;  common  room,  ii.  199  **. ; 
Johnson’s  autographs,  i.  3;  ii.  460; 
—  desk,  i.  367  n. ;  —  intended  be¬ 
quest,  ii.  126  **.;  — Hannah  More, 
ii.  197;  —  portrait,  ii.  164*2.,  199*2., 
461 ;  —  undergraduate  days,  i.  5, 
164,  362;  ii.  85-7,  197,  312,  340; 
nest  of  singing  birds,  ii.  198  n.; 
tutor,  ii.  418  *2.;  St.  John’s  College, 
i.  428*2.;  University  College,  ii.  321, 
406. 


Index. 


497 


Paget,  Richard . Philips,  Ambrose. 


P. 

Paget,  Richard,  ii.  390. 

Pailye,  Canon,  ii.  117  **.,  296  n. 

Paine,  Thomas,  ii.  33  n. 

Painters,  Company  of,  ii.  460. 
Painting,  allegorical,  ii.  15. 

Palfrey,  — ,  i.  103,  106. 

Palmer,  John,  ii.  250,  279  n. 

Palmer,  Mary  (Reynolds’s  sister),  ii. 
219*2.,  250. 

Palmer,  Mary  (Lady  Thomond),  ii.  30, 
232  «•»  457  »• 

Palmer,  Theophila  (Mrs.  Gwatkin),  ii. 
219,  457  n. 

Palmerston,  Viscount,  ii.  23,  137  n., 
241  n. 

Palmira,  i.  212. 

Paoli,  General  Pascal,  Blue  Stocking 
meeting,  ii.  201  **. ;  Boswell’s  vow, 
ii.  21  n.;  —  his  guest,  ii.  459;  grave,  ii. 
387  n. ;  Johnson,  visits, i.  61 ;  — intro¬ 
duced  to,  ii.  16  ;  —  at  Mrs.  Montagu’s, 
ii.  421. 

Paradise,  John,  i.  80,  105  ;  ii.  158, 
221. 

Parents,  i.  162. 

Park,  — ,  ii.  313*. 

Parker,  Rev.  Mr.,  ii.  413. 

Parlour ,  i.  293. 

Parnell,  Thomas,  The  Hermit ,  ii.  255  ; 
Johnson’s  epitaph,  ii.  293;  Hymn  to 
Contentment ,  ii.  428. 

Parodies,  i.  190-3. 

Parr,  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel,  Cumberland 
and  Priestley,  ii.  72  ;  Harrow  School, 
i.  161  n.\  Johnson’s  Life  projected, 
i.  296  n. ;  —  epitaph,  ii.  373  n.y  378  n. ; 
Windham,  ii.  382  n. 

Parr,  Thomas,  ii.  336. 

Particular,  i.  35. 

Party  violence,  ii.  397. 

Pascal,  Blaise,  general  knowledge,  i. 
155  n.\  geometrician  from  infancy,  i. 
481  ;  infinity,  i.  200;  Life ,  i.  48  ; 
Pensies  given  to  Boswell,  i.  87 ;  — 
read  by  Hannah  More,  ii.  194. 

Patriot,  i.  426  ;  ii.  46. 

Pattison,  Rev.  Mark,  Johnson  and 
Warburton,  i.  381  n. ;  ii.  15  n. ;  —  and 
Milton,  i.  394  n.,  399  n. 

VOL.  II.  K 


Paul,  Lewis,  ii.  326  n. 

Payne,  John,  i.  388,  394;  ii.  278;/., 

396- 

Pearce,  Dr.  Zachary,  i.  370. 

Pearson,  Colonel  G.  F.,  i.  248  n. 

Pearson,  Rev.  J.  B.,  i.  248  n.,  298. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  Bart.,  ii.  207. 

Pelham,  Right  Hon.  Henry,  i.  172  n. 

Penance,  i.  209. 

Pennant,  Thomas,  i.  430,  455. 

Penny  Cyclopaedia ,  i.  333  n. 

Pension ,  i.  418  n. 

Pepper,  General,  i.  172  n. 

Pepys,  Sir  Lucas,  M.D.,  i.  224  ».,  244  n., 
245. 

Pepys,  Samuel,  i.  133  n. 

Pepys,  Sir  William  Weller,  i.  17422., 
244;  ii.  125  n.,  191,  193,  201  n.,  205, 
416. 

Percy,  Thomas,  D.D.,  Dean  of  Carlisle, 
afterwards  Bishop  of  Dromore ;  Bos¬ 
well’s  tablets,  i.  175*2.;  Chaplain  to 
George  III,  i.  311 ;  ii.  67  ;  Goldsmith’s 
biographer,  ii.  49  ;  —  face,  ii.  269  n. ; 
Grainger,  ii.  266  n. ;  Hawkins,  ii.  80  ; 
Johnson,  Anecdotes  of,  ii.  208-18 ;  — 
Cambridge  men,  i.  169  n.;  — dedica¬ 
tion,  ii.  29  n. ;  —  eating,  ii.  105  n. ; 
—  Idler ,  ii.  65;  —  letters  to  him,  ii. 
440-1  ;  —  parodies,  ii.  67,  314;  — , 
quarrels  with,  ii.  66;  —  romances,  ii. 
441  n. ;  —  Scotch,  i.  430  n. ;  —  short¬ 
sighted,  ii.  209  n. ;  —  Stourbridge 
School,  ii.  84  n. ;  —  visits  him,  ii.  64, 
217;  Literaiy  Club,  i.  230;  Ossian , 
i. 431  n. ;  Reliques,  i.  192  ;  ‘a sprightly 
modern,’  ii.  179;  mentioned,  i.  106, 
114  *2.,  229  n. ;  ii.  35,  63, 137*2.,  34322., 
406. 

Percy,  Mrs.,  ii.  64,  118,  208*2.,  217,  442. 

Percy,  Miss,  ii.  65  **.,  406. 

Perelle,  ii.  103. 

Pergolesi,  ii.  410*2. 

Perkins,  John,  i.  349*2. ;  ii.  389. 

Persius,  ii.  346. 

Peter  the  Great,  ii.  338. 

Peterborough,  Bishop  of,  ii.  32. 

Petrarch,  i.  365. 

Peyton,  — ,  i.  61. 

Philipps,  Lady,  ii.  172. 

Philips,  Ambrose,  ii.  161,  359*2. 

k 


498 


Index. 


Philology . Prayers. 


Philology,  ii.  349  n. 

Physicians,  ‘  no  estate  raised  by  physic/ 
i.  223  ;  dress,  i.  389  n. ;  playthings  of 
fortune,  i.  390  71. \  liberality,  ii.  136  n. 
Pilgrim's  Progress.  See  Bunyan,  John. 
Pinckney,  Eliza,  ii.  76  n. 

Piozzi,  Gabriele,  ii.  140  n.,  170. 

Piozzi,  Mrs.  See  Thrale. 

Pitcairn,  Dr.,  ii.  399  n. 

Pitt,  William.  See  Chatham,  Earl  of. 
Pitt,  William,  the  younger,  ii.  193  n., 
458  n. 

Plato,  i.  112,  460. 

Plautus,  ii.  309. 

Pleasure,  i.  288,  324. 

Pliny,  i.  356,  454. 

Plum,  i.  217  n. 

Plutarch,  ii.  339,  372  n.,  374. 
Plymouth,  i.  335  ;  ii.  419. 

Pocock,  Lewis,  ii.  446  n. 

Pococke,  Edward,  i.  62. 

Poetical  Scale,  i.  398. 

Poetry,  pathetic,  i.  283 ;  devotional, 
i.  284. 

Poke,  i.  250  n. 

Poland,  i.  235  ;  ii.  367,  448  n. 
Politeness,  ii.  276. 

POLITIAN,  i.  365. 

Polluted,  ii.  149. 

Polwhele,  R.,  ii.  117  n.,  296  n. 
Polybius,  i.  419. 

Pope,  Alexander,  autographs,  i.  462  n. ; 
blank  verse,  ii.  332  ;  cant  of  an  author, 
i.  16 1  n. ;  Donne’s  Satires,  ii.  404  ; 
drowsiness,  ii.  4;  Dtmciad,  ii.  254, 
378  n. ;  eating,  ii.  336  n. ;  Epistle  to 
Jervas,  i.  434  n. ;  ii.  254;  Epistles, 
i.  433  n. ;  ii.  306  n.,  341 ;  Epitaphs, 

i.  151,  258,  413;  ii.  280  n.,  373; 
Essay  on  Criticism ,  i.  476;  ii.  359; 
Essay  on  Man,  i.  374,  435  n.,  452, 
480  ;  ii.  254,  341,  353,  367  ;  Hayley, 

ii.  420  n. ;  Homer,  i.  178,  470; 
Johnson’s  Life,  i.  480 ;  ii.  193 ;  — 
London,  i.  373;  ii.  342;  —  Messiah, 
i.  370,  459  ;  Kneller,  ii.  5  n. ;  mending 
verses,  ii.  73  n.  ;  modern  Latin  writers, 
i.  365  n.;  Moral  Essays,  i.  445  n. ;  ii. 
369  n.  ;  music,  ii.  103  n. ;  narrow,  i. 
184;  Oglethorpe,  ii.  51;  players,  ii. 
241  n. ;  Prologue  to  Cato,  i.  385  ; 


Pulteney,  ii.  271  n. ;  puns,  ii.  18  n. ; 
rank,  men  of,  ii.  245 ;  Satires,  i.  467 ; 
ii-  34L  354>  3 67  5  Savage’s  pension, 
i.  372,  376  n. ;  Shakespeare,  i.  185, 
358  n. ;  Smart’s  translation,  ii.  364  ; 
style,  i.  466;  ii.  352;  Thoughts  on 
Various  Subjects,  i.  435  n. ;  Tickell’s 
Homer,  i.  482  ;  Universal  Prayer,  ii. 
254  ;  writing,  mode  of,  i.  425. 
Porridge  Island,  i.  218. 

Porson,  Richard,  minute  writing,  i. 
191  n. ;  Johnson  and  Lauder,  i.  399  n. ; 
Hawkins,  ii.  81-3,  1 1 7  n.,  131  n. ; 
Hayley,  ii.  420  n. 

Porter,  Henry,  ii.  426  n. 

Porter,  Captain  Jarvis,  ii.  173. 

Porter,  Lucy  (Mrs.  Hunter),  ii.  426  n. 
Porter,  Lucy  (Johnson’s  step-daughter), 
reads  Hammond,  i.  107  n. ;  prayers, 

i.  108;  mother,  i.  248;  Johnson, 
veneration  for  him,  i.  298  ;  —  letter, 

ii.  450 ;  mentioned,  i.  44,  104,  106, 

i53?*->  364  n->  401,  432  439  5  “• 

i21,  39L  4X3>  4J7  n->  447- 

Porter,  Joseph,  i.  248  n. 

Porter,  — ,  i.  369  n. 

Porters,  i.  380  n. 

Porteus,  Bishop  Beilby,  ii.  196  n.,  197, 
199  n. 

Portland,  Duchess  of,  i.  338  n. 
Posterity,  i.  393. 

Pott,  Percival,  ii.  143  n. 

Poverty,  i.  251,  317. 

Pownall,  Colonel,  ii.  204. 

Prayers,  bed-time,  i.  46 ;  birthday, 
i.  7,  20,  22,  25,  31,  32,  42,  47,  49,  56, 
68,  73>  81,  9L  94>  1 00 ,  1 19  ;  change 
of  outward  things,  i.  23  ;  dead,  for  the, 
i.  8  n.,  14,  15,  18,  23,  24,  25,  29,  34, 
41,  54>  61,  65,  So,  85,  89,  98,  99,  102, 
400  ;  departure  or  at  home,  i.  108  ; 
Easter,  i.  15,  20,  21,  24,  26,  31,33,  39, 
53,  56,  60,  65,  73,  75,  79,  84,  91,  97, 
1 1 5  ;  ejaculation,  i.  123;  entering  Novum 
Museum,\.  37  ;  eye  restored  to  its  use, 
i.  19  ;  illness,  i.  50,  113;  introductory, 
i.  19;  labour,  i.  76;  mother’s  death, 
i.  22  ;  New  Year’s  Day,  i.  8-9,  13,  18, 
20,  36,  43,  49,  51,  58,  62,  69,  74,  77, 
87>  93>  95 ;  perplexing  thoughts,  i. 
1 1 7 ;  politics,  engaging  in,  i.  36 ; 


Index. 


499 


Prayers . Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua. 


Rambler,  i.  9;  repentance,  i.  122-3; 
Sacrament,  i.  27,  108,  117,  121-2; 
scruples,  i.  46 ;  Streatham,  on  leaving, 
i.  108;  study,  before  any  new,  i.  12  ; 
—  of  law,  i.  35  ;  —  of  philosophy,  i. 
17;  —  of  religion,  i.  1 2  2 ;  —  of  tongues, 
i.  47  ;  Taylor,  for  Dr.,  i.  118  ;  temper¬ 
ance,  i.  45  ;  thanksgiving  for  health,  i. 
93,  1 1 5 ;  time  misspent,  i.  13;  wife’s 
death,  i.  10-12,  16,  19,  21,  27; 
Williams,  for  Miss,  i.  114. 

Prayers  and  Meditations ,  i.  1-124. 
Preceptor ,  ii.  343. 

Prescott,  William  K.,  i.  31  n. ;  ii. 
380  n. 

Presto,  i.  189. 

Pretender,  Young,  ii.  177. 

Price,  Dr.  Richard,  i.  429  n. 

Priestley,  Rev.  Joseph,  D.D.,  diary, 

i.  65  n. ;  influenced  by  Hartley,  ii.  304  ; 
Parr’s  friend,  ii.  72 ;  philosophical 
necessity,  i.  463  n. 

Princess  Royal,  i.  6  n. 

Pringle,  Sir  John,  ii.  162  n. 

Prior,  Matthew,  Alma ,  i.  207;  An 
English  Padlock,  i.  220;  Johnson’s 
Life,  i.  178  11.,  479;  ii.  371  ;  Solomon , 

ii.  361,  376. 

Pritchard,  Mrs.,  ii.  248  n. 
Prize-fighting,  i.  149,  475  n. 
Profession,  Choice  of  a,  i.  314. 
Prologue  at  the  Opening  of  Drury  Lane 
Theatre ,  i.  385,  396  ;  ii.  314. 
Psalmanazar,  George,  i.  56,  266;  ii. 
12. 

Public  dinners,  ii.  183  n. 

Puffendorf,  i.  419. 

Punch,  i.  103. 

Punic  War,  i.  202,  452. 

Puns,  ii.  18. 

Purchase,  i.  454. 

Purgatory,  i.  401. 

Q. 

Quakers,  i.  135  n.,  222,  242. 
Quarrels,  i.  246. 

Queen  Square,  ii.  358. 

Quin,  James,  i.  382  n. ;  ii.  69  n., 
244  n. 

Quincy,  Dr.,  ii.  90  n. 

Quotations,  unfair,  ii.  236. 


R. 

Rabelais,  i.  345  n. 

Radcliffe,  John,  M.D.,  i.  223  n. ;  ii. 
377- 

Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  i.  190  71. 

Rambler,  i.  9,  17S,  18 1  n .,  305,  348, 
39I-3>  399>  465*  469;  ii-  78>  J47>  214, 
35°>  4J4* 

Ramsay,  Allan,  i.  189  n.,  250  n.\  ii.  188, 
192. 

Ramsay,  Colonel  James,  ii.  99  n. 
Ramsay,  John,  i.  14  n. 

Randolph,  Rev.  Dr.,  ii.  66  n. 
Raphael,  ii.  390. 

Rapin,  Paul,  ii.  357. 

Rasselas,  i.  285,  415,  471  ;  ii.  1 7 1  n., 
175,  368. 

Raymond,  Samuel,  ii.  39  n. 

Raynal,  Abbe,  i.  21 1;  ii.  12,  265. 
Rayneval,  — ,  i.  109  n. 

Reading,  i.  137,  181  ;  ii.  2,  9,  142. 
Reed,  Isaac,  i.  387  71 . ;  ii.  24  71.,  328  n. 
Reed,  Joseph,  ii.  31S  n  .,  41 1  n . 

Reid,  Dame,  ii.  84  n. 

Reid,  Talbot  Baines,  ii.  95  n. 

Religion.  See  under  Christianity 
and  Johnson. 

Resista7ice  710  Rebellio7i,  ii.  53. 
Resolutions,  i.  31,  55,  89. 
Retirement,  i.  315  ;  ii.  8. 
Revolutionist,  ii.  356. 

Reynolds  family,  i.  421  n. 

Reynolds,  Frances,  Recollectiofis,  ii. 
250-300;  purity,  i.  207;  politician, 
ii.  42;  Hannah  More,  ii.  179,  181, 
192;  essays  and  verses,  ii.  279,  449; 
Johnson’s  letters,  ii.  448-50,  453,  455  ; 
—  parody,  ii.  314  ;  Sir  Joshua’s  letter, 
ii.  455  ;  —  will,  ii.  457  n. ;  mentioned, 

i.  103,  327  ;  ii.  186,  188,  200. 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  apprenticed,  i. 

240  71. ;  Barnard’s  verses,  ii.  263  ;  be¬ 
quests,  ii.  24  n. ;  Boswell  dines  with 
him,  ii.  24  ;  —  debts,  ii.  34;  —  letter, 

ii.  457,  460;  Cumberland,  ii.  72; 
dinners,  ii.  93  «.,  460;  easy  language, 
ii.  232  n. ;  family,  i.  421  7t. ;  funeral, 
ii.  379  7i.  ;  game,  ii.  28,  34;  Gold¬ 
smith,  i.  421  ;  ii.  269  ;  Hawkins,  ii.  81 ; 
Hope  nursing  Love,  ii.  159  n. ;  Ugo- 


K  k  2 


5°° 


Index. 


Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua . Roman  Catholics. 


lino,  ii.  248  ;  idol  of  every  company, 
ii.  181  ;  Infant  Hercules ,  ii.  311;  in¬ 
vulnerable,  i.  286  ;  Italy,  returns  from, 

i.  178;  Johnson,  acquaintance  with, 

ii.  294;  — antics,  ii.  275,  338  n. ;  — 
caricature,  ii.  420 ;  —  character,  ii. 
219-28  ;  —  character-drawing,  ii.  270; 

—  checked  immoral  talk,  ii.  45  n. ;  — 
conscience  and  shame,  ii.  288  n.  ;  — 
covered  his  ignorance,  ii.  19  n. ;  — 
death,  ii.  5,  152,  156,  203,  225; 

—  Dedication ,  ii.  29  ;  — ,  Dialogues 

on,  ii.  232-249 ;  —  Dictionary,  i. 
182  n.;  —  downs ,  ii.  261  ;  —  drunk, 
ii.  321  n. ;  — executor,  ii.  81,  380  n. ; 
— ,  funeral,  ii.  388 ;  —  hypocrisy 

not  suspected,  ii.  9  n.,  114  n. ;  —  in¬ 
fluence,  ii.  229-231;  — Italy,  i.  441; 
ii.  459  ;  —  Life ,  ii.  26  n. ;  —  passions, 
i.  246  n. ;  —  pictures,  i.  214;  ii.  40, 
102,  401  ;  —  portrait,  i.  313  ;  ii.  9, 
164  n.,  199  n.,  274  375,  461  465  ; 

—  prejudices,  i.  2  ,4  n. ;  —  promptitude, 

i.  285  n. ;  ii.  77;  —  recitations,  i. 
347  n.;  —  roughness,  i.  212  n.  ;  — 
‘school,’  ii.  227,  230,  359  n. ;  —  silence, 

ii.  178  ;  —  tea,  ii.  75  ;  —  writings  not 
read,  ii.  42;  knighted,  ii.  322;  laced 
coats,  i.  253  ;  Literary  Club,  i.  229-30, 
420  ;  ii.  23,  26,  30,  32  ;  macaw,  ii.  179  ; 
Malone’s  Shakespeare ,  ii.  24 ;  monu¬ 
ment,  i.  230  n. ;  Ossory,  visits  Lord, 
ii.  23  n. ;  portrait,  i.  342  n. ;  prosperity, 
i.  286;  Richmond  house,  ii.  457; 
Royal  Academy,  ii.  330  n.  ;  Rubens, 
i.  152,  153, n.;  sisters,  ii.  455;  stories, 

i.  225  ;  Streatham  portraits,  i.  109  n., 

342 ;  Thrale’s  manservant,  ii.  449 ; 
will,  ii.  457  n. ;  wine,  i.  327  n. ;  ii.  75  ; 
mentioned,  i.  335  n.,  351  n.  ;  ii.  33, 
49’  52>  53’  182,  187-8,  193  n,  194, 
258,  266,  269,  270,  272,  292-3,  298  n., 
350  n.y  362  363. 

Richard  II,  i.  149  n. 

Richard  of  Devizes,  ii.  334  n. 
Richardson,  J.,  ii.  377  n. 

Richardson,  Samuel,  character,  ii.  251 ; 
Clarissa,  i.  260  282,  297,  319  n.\ 

ii.  251,  439  ;  compared  with  Fielding, 
i.  282  ;  ii.  190  ;  flattery,  i.  273  ;  Johnson 
and  Hogarth,  ii.  401  n. ;  —  letters  to, 


ii.  435-8  ;  —  loan  to,  i.  413  ;  ii.  323 :  — 
sought  after  him,  ii.  i8o«. ;  —  Rambler , 

i.  393  n. ;  ii.  351  ;  —  makes  him  rear, 

ii.  439  n. ;  Sir  Charles  Grandison, 

i.  169  n.,  170  71.,  221  n.,  300  n. ;  ii. 
11  «.,  305,  435-7;  Universal  History, 

ii.  438. 

Richardson,  William,  i.  413. 
Richardson,  — ,  an  attorney,  i.  179. 
Richelieu,  ii.  306-7. 

Ridicule,  the  test  of  truth,  i.  452. 
Rising  in  life,  i.  252. 

Roads,  i.  150,  249  n. 

Robertson,  Rev.  William,  D.D.,  His¬ 
tories,  i.  429;  ii.  10,  349;  Johnson, 
Dictio7iaiy ,  ii.  352  ;  —  downs  him, 
i.  169  n. ;  Presbyterian  worship,  i.  189, 
428  7i. ;  style,  i.  345  n. ;  ii.  48. 

Robinso7i  Crusoe.  See  De  Foe. 
Robinson,  George,  ii.  33,  37. 

Robinson,  Rev.  Hastings,  ii.  417. 
Robinson,  Miss  (Mrs.  G.  L.  Scott),  i.  1 80. 
Robinson,  Rev.  R.  G.,  ii.  417. 
Robinson,  Sir  Thomas,  ii.  95. 
Rochefort,  Marshal,  i.  270  n. 
Rochefoucauld,  adversity  of  our  friends, 

i.  207;  conversation,  i.  169  n.\  death, 

ii*  337»  400  n- »  gentleman  writer,  i. 
334  ;  3°4  5  gravity,  i.  326  n. ;  judging 

our  friends,  ii.  200  71. ;  self-accusation, 

ii.  153  n. 

Rochester,  i.  111. 

Roffette,  Abbe,  i.  215. 

Rogers,  Rev.  John,  D.D.,  i.  6,  124. 
Rogers,  Samuel,  Cumberland,  ii.  72  I 
Ginevra,  i.  1 79  n. ;  Harris’s  Hermes ,  ii. 
7 1  n. ;  Hayley,  ii.  421  n. ;  in  the  highest 
society,  i.  287  n.  ;  Literary  Club,  ii. 
26  n. ;  Murphy,  i.  406  «. ;  Reynolds’s 
Infant  Hercules ,  ii.  31 1. 

Rolland,  John,  i.  14  n. 

Rollin,  Charles,  i.  162. 

Rolt,  Richard,  i.  412  n.  ;  ii.  34,  162. 
Roman  Catholics,  Catholic  Relief  Bill, 
ii.  207  ;  conversion  to  Protestantism,  ii. 
1 51 ;  doctrine  of  purgatory,  i.  401  ; 
Jansenists  and  Jesuits,  ii.  200 ;  John¬ 
son’s  friends,  i.  210;  obstinate  ration¬ 
ality,  i.  116  n.,  279  n. ;  pomp  of 
ceremonies,  ii.  1 76  ;  St.  Pancras  church¬ 
yard,  ii.  387. 


Index . 


501 

Romantic  virtue . Scott,  Sir  Walter. 


Romantic  virtue,  ii.  306. 

Romford,  i.  305. 

Rom  illy,  Sir  Samuel,  Abbe  Raynal, 

i.  21 1  n. ;  death  of  Adam  Smith  and 
Johnson,  i.  357  n. ;  Windham,  ii. 
382  n. 

Roscommon,  Earl  of,  i.  436. 

Rose,  Dr.,  i.  188,  419,  430,  452  ;  ii.  419. 
Rose,  Mrs.,  ii.  419. 

Rotheram,  John,  i.  41. 

Rothes,  Lady,  ii.  158. 

Rouen,  i.  215. 

Rousseau,  Jean  Jacques,  Johnson  like 
him  in  certain  respects,  i.  158,  220 ; 
coupled  with  St.  Austin,  i.  256 ; 
authors’  talk  and  writings,  ii.  310  n. 
Rowe,  Nicholas,  i.  161  n.,  252  n.,  284; 

ii.  142  n.}  196  n.,  197  n.,  357  n. 

Roy,  i.  245  n. 

Royal  Academy,  i.  436;  ii.  330  n. 
Royal  Society,  ii.  398. 

Ruabon,  i.  308. 

Rubens,  i.  152,  153  n. 

Ruddiman,  Thomas,  i.  253  ».,  394  n. 
Ruffhead,  Owen,  i.  482. 

Ruffles,  ii.  139. 

Rushout,  Sir  John,  ii.  30 6n. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  ii.  328  n. 

Russell,  Lord  William,  i.  252  n. 
Russia,  Empress,  ii.  147,  31 1  ;  transla¬ 
tions  of  English  works,  ii.  147,  237  n. ; 
Garrick’s  fame,  ii.  237  ;  Vauxhall,  ii. 
237  n. ;  war  with  Turkey,  ii.  392. 
Rutty,  i.  41  n.,  81  n. 

Ryland,  John,  i.  388,  400  n. ;  ii.  124, 
126,  149,  151-2,  155. 

Rymer,  Thomas,  i.  105,  186  n. 

S. 

Sacheverell,  Rev.  Dr.  Henry,  ii.  370. 
Sack,  i.  309. 

Sackville's  Poems ,  ii.  70. 

Sacrament,  ii.  310. 

Sailors,  i.  335;  ii.  376. 

Saint-Fond,  Faujas,  i.  249  n. 
Saint-Simon,  Duke  of,  i.  270  n. 
Sainte-Beuve,  i.  334 n. ;  ii.  229. 
Salisbury,  i.  115  n. ;  ii.  399. 

Sallust,  i.  112;  ii.  22  n.,  372  n. 
Salter,  Rev.  Dr.  Samuel,  i.  179,  388. 
Salusbury,  Rev.  G.  A.,  i.  259  n. 


Salusbury,  Lady,  i.  339  n. 

Salusbury,  Mrs.,  i.  66,  206  n.,  235  ;  ii. 
365  379>  392- 

Salusbury,  Sir  Thomas,  i.  340  n. 
Sanderson,  Bishop,  i.  100 «. ;  ii.  128, 
1 30  n. 

Sandwich,  fourth  Earl  of,  ii.  330. 
Sandys,  second  Lord,  i.  217,  31 6  tt., 

337  342w- 

Sandys,  Samuel,  ii.  306  n. 
Sannazarius,  i.  366. 

Sarpi,  Father  Paul,  ii.  345. 

Sastres,  Francesco,  i.  77  n.,  292,  447  ; 
ii.  134,  149-52,  154-5,  j58»  3^3 
454,  459- 

Satire,  general,  i.  327. 

Savage,  Richard,  human  nature,  i.  208  n. ; 
intimacy  with  Johnson,  i.  370-3,  376 ; 
ii.  370,  424;  Life,  i.  381,  387,  447  ;  ii. 
89,  343  >  Wanderer,  i.  391;  anecdotes 
of,  ii.  161 ;  late  hours,  ii.  326. 
Scaliger,  Joseph,  i.  410;  ii.  377  n. 
Scepticism,  i.  120;  ii.  287. 
Schoolmasters,  i.  163;  ii.  17. 
Schools,  public,  i.  294. 

Scipion  1,  Alberto,  i.  31 1  n. 

Sconces,  i.  164  n. 

Scotland  and  the  Scotch,  breeched, 
ii.  169;  compared  with  Irish,  i.  427  ; 
emigrants,  ii.  403 ;  Established  Church, 

i.  428  n. ;  fruit,  ii.  170;  ‘God  made 
it,’  i.  265 ;  insurrections,  ii.  54  n. ; 
Johnson’s  prejudices,  i.  264,  427-32; 

ii.  41*.,  49,  92,  216,  226,  333,  352; 
—  visits  it,  i.  427,  475  ;  learning,  i. 
321,  366  n.,  419;  ii.  5,  15,  48,  308, 
375;  map,  ii.  49;  shoes,  ii.  77;  trees, 

i.  43072.;  ii.  51,  374,  468;  whisky,  ii. 
44;  writers,  i.  188;  ii.  10. 

Scott,  George  Lewis,  i.  180;  ii.  183  n. 
Scott,  John  (first  Earl  of  Eldon),  Fellow 
of  University  College,  i.  42  n.  ;  first 
visit  to  London,  i.  44  n. ;  buttress  of 
the  Church,  ii.  20  n.\  Johnson’s  tea, 

ii.  76  n. ;  —  at  Oxford,  ii.  406  n. 
Scott,  John,  of  Amwell,  ii.  47. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  Bart.,  Antiquary ,  i. 

430  n. ;  attacks,  i.  271  n. ;  Boswell, 
i.  166  n. ;  Cumberland,  ii.  72  ;  desidiae 
valedixi,\.  5  n. ;  Forbes,  Sir  William,  ii. 
195  n. ;  Friday  Club,  i.  230  n. ;  Hoole, 


5°2 


Index. 


Scott,  Sir  Walter . Sherlock,  Martin. 


ii.  145 ;  Johnson’s  good  breeding,  i. 
169  n. ;  —  known  to  posterity,  ii. 
395  n. ;  Scotch  learning,  ii.  5  n. ;  — 
Vanity  of  Human  Wishes ,  i.  180  n. ; 
memory,  ii.  88 /z. ;  More,  Hannah,  ii. 
190  71. ;  mutual  friend ,  ii.  219  n. ; 
nothing  to  blot,  ii.  224  n. ;  Pope,  ii. 
4  /z. ;  Siddons,  Mrs.,  ii.  319  zz. ;  Vida, 
i.  3 66  n. ;  watch,  i.  124  11.;  ii.  117;*. 
Scott,  Dr.  William  (Lord  Stowell), 
Johnson’s  executor,  ii.  81,  154,  380  n. ; 
—  as  a  lawyer  and  speaker,  ii.  362  n. ; 
Literary  Club,  ii.  24 ;  Dr.  Adams’s 
letter,  ii.  460;  mentioned,  i.  44  /z., 
107  /z.,  349  n. ;  ii.  36,  388,  406. 

Scott,  William  Bell,  i.  6  n. 

Scott,  Mrs.,  ii.  183. 

Scoundrel ,  ii.  4,  19. 

Scrase,  — ,  a  solicitor,  ii.  121  n. 
Scriveners,  ii.  324  n. 

Scruples.  See  under  Johnson. 
Scrupulosity ,  i.  169. 

Sea,  ii.  45. 

Second  Sight,  i.  455. 

Selden,  John,  i.  137  n.  ;  ii.  48. 
Self-accusation,  ii.  153. 

Self-praise,  ii.  153. 

Seneca,  i.  207. 

Sensual ,  ii.  301  n. 

Sentiment,  i.  206. 

Sergrove,  — ,  ii.  460. 

SfevRES,  i.  325. 

Seward,  Anna,  i.  167/2.,  322  n. ;  ii. 

414,  417,  420  /z.,  421  n. 

Seward,  Rev.  Thomas,  ii.  417. 

Seward,  William,  F.R.S.,  i.  172  /z.,  339, 
349  n. ;  ii.  30,  160,  190  n.,  249  n. ; 
Anecdotes,  ii.  301-3 11. 

Shaftesbury,  third  Earl  of,  ‘Every 
one  thinks  himself  well-bred,’ i.  169  n. ; 
gravity,  i.  326  /z. ;  punning,  ii.  18  zz.; 
ridicule  the  test  of  truth,  i.  452  n. 
Shakespeare,  William,  acted  abroad, 
i*  334J  alarm  caused  by  his  plays, 

i.  158  ;  compared  with  Congreve  and 
Corneille,  i.  1S6— 7  ;  — with  Addison, 

ii.  13  n.  ;  copyright,  ii.  442  n. ;  edi¬ 
tions,  i.  381  ;  ii.  106  n. ;  —  Cambridge, 
ii.  358  n. ;  —  Capell’s,  ii.  315;  — 
Johnson’s,  i.  381,  415,  422,451,473; 
ii.  47  n.,  106,  1 1 5,  307,  320,  328,  357; 


—  Pope’s,  i.  185;  —  Theobald’s,  ii. 
431  ;  —  Warburton’s,  i.  381 ;  ii.  431  ; 
Garrick,  ii.  333  ;  horned  husbands,  i. 
222  n. ;  house,  ii.  340;  imitators,  ii. 
142  n. ;  Johnson’s  admiration  of  him, 
i.  313;  ii.  165;  —  copy  of  his  plays, 
i.  304  n.;  learning,  i.  160;  monument, 

i.  448;  ii.  137;  players,  ii.  241  n. ; 
Poetical  Scale ,  i.  398  n.;  Steele’s  quota¬ 
tion,  ii.  242  n.;  traditions,  i.  433  ;  All's 
Well ,  &c.,  i.  251 ;  Antony  and  Cleo¬ 
patra,  ii.  20  n. ;  As  You  Like  It,  ii. 
417  ;  Hamlet,  i.  158,  396,  422,  473  ;  ii. 
19,  86  n.,  198  n. ,  355  ;  1  Henry  IV,  i. 
283 ;  ii.  303  n. ;  2  Henry  IV,  ii.  132  n., 
285;  Henry  V,  i.  216,  231  n. ;  ii. 
221  n.,  226  71.;  Henry  VIII,  ii.  14, 
226;  Julius  Caesar,  ii.  111  n .,  31 1  n. ; 
King  Joh7i,  ii.  75  zz. ;  Love's  Labour's 
Lost,  i.  265,  270;  Macbeth ,  i.  186, 
339»  443  5  ii-  122,  151,  180,  240, 
242  71.  ;  Measure  for  Measure,  i.  439  ; 
Merchant  of  Venice,  i.  482 ;  Merry 
Wives  of  Wmdsor,  i.  320/2. ;  ii.  226  n., 
428;  Midsii77i77ier  Night's  Dream,  i. 
144,  301,  457  7i. ;  Othello,  i.  283  ;  ii. 
130;  Twelfth  Night,  ii.  275  ;  Winter's 
Tale,  i.  301/2. 

Shame,  ii.  288. 

Sharp,  J.,  ii.  240  /z. 

Sharp,  Samuel,  i.  243  n. 

Sharpe,  Richard,  i.  243  n. ;  ii.  197  /2. 
Shaw,  Stebbing,  ii.  422. 

Shaw,  Rev.  William,  i.  104,  106 ;  ii. 
^  45i- 

Shebbeare,  Dr.  John,  ii.  355  n. 
Shelburne,  second  Earl  of,  hires 
Streatham,  i.  108. 

Shenstone,  William,  quoted,  i.  168  n., 
246;  ii.  253,  333/2.,  347;  The  Lea- 
sowes,  i.  323;  ii.  3,  210  /z. ;  his 
poetry,  ii.  5 ;  at  Pembroke  College, 

ii.  198  ;  Johnson’s  style,  ii.  351. 
Sherbet,  i.  30. 

Sheridan,  Charles,  i.  319  n. 

Sheridan,  Richard  Brinsley,  Dr.  Sum¬ 
ner’s  pupil,  i.  16 1  71. ;  Literary  Club, 
ii.  137  7i. ;  Garrick’s  guest,  ii.  245  n. 
Sheridan,  Thomas,  i.  418  n. ;  ii.  1. 
Sherlock,  Bishop,  ii.  429. 

Sherlock,  Martin,  ii.  363. 


Index. 


5°3 


Sheward,  — 


Sheward,  — ,  i.  80,  102. 

Shipley,  Anna  Maria,  ii.  200. 

Shipley,  Jonathan,  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph, 
ii.  32  n.,  188,  193,  196 200,  317. 
Shippen,  William,  ii.  305. 

Siam,  King  of,  i.  189. 

Siberian  barley,  ii.  448  n. 

Sick,  telling  lies  to  the,  ii.  337. 
Siddons,  Mrs.,  ii.  14,  319  n.,  385. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  i.  394. 

Simpson,  Joseph,  i.  35,  39,  229  n. 
Sincerely ,  i.  346  ;  ii.  448  n. 
Singularity,  i.  221. 

Skating,  i.  245. 

Skelton,  Rev.  Philip,  ii.  53. 

Skinner,  Stephen,  ii.  214. 

Skye,  i.  67,  259. 

Slack,  the  butcher,  i.  449  n. 

Sloan e.  Sir  Hans,  i.  462  n. 

Small ,  i.  38  n. 

Smart,  Christopher,  i.  320,  413;  ii. 

364-5- 

Smelt,  Leonard,  ii.  191. 

Smith,  Adam,  Barnard’s  verses,  ii.  265  ; 
credulity,  i.  243  n.;  death,  i.  357  n. ; 
house- rents,  ii.  94  n. ;  hunger,  ii. 
75  n. ;  Johnson,  Glasgow,  and  Brent¬ 
ford,  i.  322  ;  —  knowledge  of  books,  i. 
18 1  «.,  ii.  214  n. ;  —  opinion  of,  ii.  423 ; 
—  Savage, i.  372  n. ;  —  Shakespeare,  ii. 
307  ;  Kames,  Lord,  ii.  16  n.  ;  Literary 
Club,  i.  437  n. ;  ii.  137  n .,  424  n. ; 
Oxford,  i.  165  n.;  players,  i.  457;?.; 
soldiers  and  sailors,  i.  335  n.;  Wealth 
of  Nations,  Fox  could  not  read  it,  ii. 
424  n. ;  —  in  Russian,  ii.  147  n. ;  — 
writing  on  trade,  ii.  162  n. 

Smith,  Edmund,  i.  368  n. 

Smith,  Sydney,  i.  230  n. 

Smithfield,  i.  149. 

Smollett,  Tobias,  M.D.,  age  of  George 
II,  ii.  7  n.;  Bath,  Lord,  ii.  271  n. ; 
chemistry,  i.  307  n. ;  convocation,  ii. 
369  n. ;  De  Foe,  i.  332  n. ;  Johnson’s 
Debates,  ii.  342  ;  —  servant,  ii.  439  n.  ; 
Lichfield,  ii.  410  u. ;  Mansfield,  ii. 
143  n-  >  pension,  no,ii.  355  n. ;  Richard¬ 
son,  i.  283  n. ;  style,  ii.  ion.  ;  Walpole, 
ii.  309  n. 

Snatch ,  i.  43. 

Society,  ii.  443. 


Stainesby,  Rev.  — . 


Socrates,  i.  329;  ii.  98  n. 

Solander,  Dr.,  i.  280;  ii.  181. 
Soldiers,  i.  254  n. 

Solemn ,  i.  7  n. 

Solitude,  i.  219. 

Somers,  Lord,  i.  467. 

Somerset,  ‘  proud  ’  Duke  of,  i.  163  n. 
Somervile,  William,  ii.  333  n. 
Sophistication ,  i.  307  n. 

South,  Rev.  Robert,  D.D.,  Averroes, 
i.  198  n.\  belly  and  the  conscience,  i. 
249  n. ;  Busby’s  pupil,  ii.  304  ;  chance 
in  wit,  i.  175^.;  chaplains,  i.  364  n.  ; 
finding  ears  and  words,  ii.  246  n. ; 
metaphysical  love,  i.  477  n.\  quoting 
him,  ii.  207;  religion  and  morals,  ii. 
16 1  n. ;  souls  keep  bodies  from  putre¬ 
faction,  i.  185  n. 

Southern,  Thomas,  i.  385  n. ;  ii.  48/2. 
Southey,  Robert,  dreams,  i.  1 1  n. ; 
‘  Botch’  Hayes,  i.  476  n. ;  metaphysical 
poets,  i.  478  n. ;  Bruce’s  Abyssinia,  ii. 
12  n. ;  Cowper  and  Henderson,  ii. 
41 1  n. ;  Hayley,  ii.  421  n. 
Southwark,  i.  292. 

Southwell,  Edmund,  ii.  114. 
Southwell,  Lord,  ii.  1 14. 

Southwell,  — ,  i.  62. 

Spavined,  i.  286  n. 

Spectacles,  ii.  325. 

Spectator,  i.  465  ;  ii.  445  11. 

Spence,  Rev.  Joseph,  i.  4S2  ;  ii.  3,  348, 
366. 

Spencer,  first  Earl,  ii.  137  n.,  193, 
241  n. 

Spencer,  second  Earl,  ii.  193  n. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  i.  190  n. ;  ii.  192, 
372- 

Spina,  Alexander,  ii.  325  n. 

Spirits.  See  under  Ghosts. 
Spottiswoode,  Andrew,  ii.  199  n.,  461  n. 
Sprat,  Bishop,  ii.  363. 

Springing -house ,  ii.  323. 

St.  Clement  Danes,  i.  63  n.,  65  n., 
1 16  n. ;  ii.  116. 

St.  Giles,  ii.  304. 

St.  Helens,  Lord,  i.  416. 

St.  Lawrence,  River,  i.  322. 

St.  Pancras  Church,  ii.  387. 
Staffordshire,  ii.  410  n. 

Stainesby,  Rev.  — ,  i.  124. 


5°4 


Index . 


Stanfield,  Clarkson . Swinton,  John. 


Stanfield,  Clarkson,  i.  99  n. 
Stanhope,  first  Earl,  i.  172  n. ;  ii.  410  n. 
Stanhope,  Philip,  ii.  16,  348. 
Stanhope,  Mrs.,  ii.  348. 

Staphorstius,  i.  394. 

Statius,  i.  32. 

Steele,  Sir  Richard,  Essays ,  i.  187; 
hospitals,  i.  204  n. ;  Tatler ,  i.  465  ; 
Tickell’s  Homer ,  i.  482 ;  Addison’s 
loan,  ii.  3  n. ;  bailiffs,  ii.  161 ;  Better- 
ton,  ii.  242  n. 

Steele,  — ,  i.  375. 

Steevens,  George,  Anecdotes ,  ii.  312- 
329  ;  Baretti’s  trial,  ii.  228  n. ;  Boswell, 
ii.  28,  33 ;  Capell  and  Collins,  ii.  316  ; 
Essex  Head  Club,  ii.  221  ;  Hawkins, 
ii.  129;  house,  ii.  3X3  328  n. ; 

Johnson’s  death,  ii.  159;  — Lives ,  ii. 
371 ;  — atMarylebone  Gardens,  ii.  41  o ; 
—  servant  bribed,  ii.  329  n. ;  — watch, 
ii.  296  ;  — ,  visits,  i.  104 ;  Literary- 
Club,  i.  229  n.;  ii.  26;  Malone,  ii. 
24;  Shakespeare ,  ii.  328  n. 

Stephens,  Henry,  i.  445  n.  ;  ii.  123. 
Stephenson,  B.  C.,  ii.  313  n. 

Sterne,  Lancelot,  Tristram  Shandy , 

i.  129  n.y  334  n.  ;  ii.  71 ;  read  by  Miss 
Burney,  ii.  190  n.  ;  a  blockhead,  ii. 
270 n.\  grossness,  ii.  320;  no  pension, 

ii.  355  n. ;  Sermons ,  ii.  429. 

Stewart,  Dugald,  ii.  425. 

Stockdale,  Rev.  Percival,  Anecdotes , 

ii-  33°-4- 

Stockdale,  — ,  a  printer,  i.  376,  378, 
476. 

Stock-jobber ,  i.  473  n. 

Stonehouse,  Sir  James,  M.D.,  ii.  179, 
185. 

Stops,  i.  95  n. 

Storace,  Stephen,  ii.  410  n. 

Storry,  Rev.  Mr.,  ii.  204. 

Story,  value  of  a,  i.  225,  348  ;  ii.  2. 
Stourbridge  School,  i.  159  n.,  361  ; 
ii.  84  n. 

Strada,  i.  366  ;  ii.  359. 

Strahan,  Andrew,  ii.  373  n. 

Strahan,  Rev.  George,  D.D.,i.  4,  89  n., 
400,447-8;  ii.  124,  126,  128,  132-3, 
148>  i55>  158-9?  385. 

Strahan,  Mrs.,  i.  205  n. ;  ii.  126,  148, 
159* 


Strahan,  William,  i.  104,  106,  188  n., 
265  n.,  383  n.y  412-3,  415  n.y  430; 
ii.  22  n.,  90  n.y  442-5. 

Streatfield,  Sophia,  i.  339. 

Streatham,  Church,  i.  239;  ii.  319; 
Common,  i.  301 ;  Johnson  goes  there 
in  1766,  i.  43,  234;  —  daily  life,  i. 
non.,  21 1  n. ;  —  leaves  it,  i.  108, 
438  ;  library,  i.  109,  313  n.,  342,  347  n., 
423  5  ii-  352;  summer-house,  i.  99, 
291. 

Strickland,  Mrs.,  ii.  290. 

Strundt  Jager,  i.  358  n. 

Stuart,  Gilbert,  ii.  425. 

Stuart,  Lady  Louisa,  ii.  145. 

Study,  ii.  248  n. 

Study,  season  propitious  for,  i.  67. 

Style,  new,  i.  6n.,  13,  129  n. 

Subordination,  i.  437  n. ;  ii.  243. 

Sudenberg,  Professor,  i.  280  n. 

Suicide,  ii.  10,  52. 

Sully,  Duke  of,  i.  134  n.,  273  n. 

Sumner,  Dr.  Robert,  i.  161 ;  ii.  4. 

Sunday,  i.  17,  301 ;  ii.  413. 

Surgical  operations,  ii.  143. 

Surtees,  W.  E.,  ii.  408. 

Swann,  ii.  278. 

Swift,  Jonathan,  Academy,  i.  436 ;  Ar- 
buthnot,  i.  223  n. ;  Bentley,  ii.  377  n. ; 
Boulter,  Archbishop,  ii.  267  n. ;  Cade- 
nus  and  Venessa,  i.  202 ;  complainer, 
ii.  259  11. ;  conversation,  ii.  166 ;  eating 
fruit,  i.  130  n.\  frugality,  ii.  238  n.  ; 
good  manners,  ii.  276  n. ;  Gower,  ii. 
361 ;  hated  the  world,  i.  327 ;  ii.  465  ; 
human  depravity,  i.  268  n. ;  imitation, 
ii.  142  n. ;  Ireland,  denied,  ii.  48 ; 
Johnson’s  dislike,  i.  373,  479;  ii.  211, 
330 ;  lesser  morals,  i.  454 ;  miseries  of 
life,  ii.  25 6n. ;  On  Dr.  Swiff  s  Death , 
i.  277  ;  ii.  386 ;  originality,  ii.  368  n. ; 
Parson  Dapper,  i.  171??.;  physicians, 
i.  223;  Pilgrims  Progress,  i.  332  n.  ; 
public  table,  ii.  183  n.\  spectacles,  ii. 
325  «•>  343  5  To  Stella,  i.  202,  259; 
style,  i.  466  ;  vive  la  bagatelle ,  ii.  50  n. ; 
Voyage  to  Laputa,  ii.  262  n. 

Swinburne,  A.  C.,  ii.  246  n. 

Swinfen,  Dr.  Samuel,  i.  131-2,  409. 

Swinhoe,  Gilbert,  i.  369  n . 

Swinton,  John,  i.  445. 


Index . 


5°5 


Symonds,  Horatio  P . Thrale,  Hester  Lynch. 


Symonds,  Horatio  P.,  i.  82  n.,  129  n. 
Symons,  Rev.  Benjamin,  D.D.,  i.  475  n. 
Sympathy,  i.  205,  268;  ii.  285. 
Symposiarch ,  ii.  97. 

T. 

Tacitus,  i.  188  n.,  356,  369,  430  n.,  434, 
485,  487  ;  ii.  347. 

Talbot,  Catharine,  i.  179;  ii.  351. 
Tales,  of  oneself,  i.  31 1. 

Talk.  See  Conversation. 
Talleytrand,  i.  273  n. 

Tarleton,  Richard,  ii.  99. 

Taverns,  ii.  91  n.;  —  chair,  ii.  91. 
Tavistock,  Marchioness  of,  i.  252. 
Tavistock,  Marquis  of,  i.  252  n. 
Taxation  no  Tyranny ,  i.  426  ;  ii.  39,  42, 
46~7>  53>  186  n. 

Taylor,  Bishop  Jeremy,  Act  of  love, 
i.  76  n. ;  Johnson  read  him  much,  ii. 
13 ;  lies  in  prayers,  i.  120  ;  sickness,  ii. 
128  n. ;  Worthy  Communicant ,  i.  54  n. 
Taylor,  Rev.  John,  D.D.,  dinner  on 
Easter  Eve,  i.  53  n.\  ii.  257  n. ;  John¬ 
son’s  death-bed,  ii.  1 5 1, 158;  — funeral, 

i.  449;  ii.  136;  —  hopes  to  talk 
seriously  with  him  ;  i.  101  ;  — ,  know¬ 
ledge  of  the  life  of,  i.  158,  164,  166, 
363,  364  n. ;  — ,  Letter  to ,  i.  101  n. ; 
—  letters,  ii.  447,  452  ;  —  resents  his 
advice,  i.  96  n.,  449  n. ;  —  silver  coffee¬ 
pot,  i.  105;  — wife,  i.  257;  ii.  102; 
sermons,  i.  82,  476;  sick,  i.  118  n. ; 
mentioned,  i.  383  n.,  438 ;  ii.  392. 

Taylor,  John  ( Demosthenes ),  i.  289. 
Taylor,  Michael  Angelo,  ii.  36. 

Tea,  i.  135,  159  n .,  414;  ii.  16,  76. 
Temple,  Archbishop,  ii.  457  n. 

Temple,  second  Earl,  ii.  458  n. 

Temple,  Sir  William,  i.  466. 

Temple,  Rev.  William  Johnson,  ii.  21  71., 
395  n.,  457. 

Tennyson,  Alfred,  Clarissa ,  ii.  191  n. ; 
Milton,  ii.  165  n. ;  Ode  on  the  Death  of 
Wellington ,  i.  296  n.  ;  war,  ii.  16  n. 
Terence,  i.  373;  ii.  317. 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  Imitation  of  Christ, 

ii.  153  n. ;  Addison’s  hymn,  ii.  393  n. 
Theobald,  Lewis,  i.  304  n.,  358. 

0  4>,  i.  76,  89,  98. 

Thirlby,  Dr.  Styan,  ii.  430. 


Thomas,  M.,  i.  434. 

Thomond,  Marquis  and  Marchioness  of, 
ii.  232  n. 

Thomson,  James,  Agamemnon ,  i.  31 1  n. ; 
cant  about  Rome,  i.  201  n.  ;  Castle  of 
Indolence ,  ii.  73  n.,  268  «.,  358  n. ; 
nephew,  ii.  2  n. ;  Seasons ,  ii.  428  n. 
Thorpe,  J.,  i.  304  n. 

Thou,  De  (Thuanus),  i.  201  n. ;  ii.  380. 
Thoughts  concerning  Falkland's  Islands , 
i.  173  n. 

Thrale,  Henry,  Abingdon,  stood  for, 

i.  293  71. ;  brewery,  i.  181,  214  ;  ii.  40, 
218  n.  ;  carriage  accident,  i.  330 ; 
character,  i.  no  ii.  218;  conver¬ 
sation,  ii.  169,  374 ;  death,  i.  96,  99, 
206  n.,  277,  438  ;  ii.  8,  101  n.,  337  n. ; 
dinners,  ii.  40,  43-4,  49,  53,  352  ; 
embarrassed,  i.  235  ;  irregularity  of 
his  family,  i.  37;  Johnson’s  challenge, 

ii.  98  n. ;  —  chemistry,  i.  307 ;  — 
epitaph  on  him,  i.  237;  ii.  379,  389  n. ; 
—  executor,  ii.  374 ;  —  friendship,  i. 
97,  99,  166,  232-4,  341,  422-3  ;  ii. 
120,  352  ;  —  guardian  of  his  daughters, 

i.  340  71. ;  —  horse,  i.  288  n. ;  — ,  in¬ 
fluence  over,  i.  241,  338,  453;  — 
Italian  tour,  ii.  188  n.;  —  reprimanded 
him,  i.  216;  —  Taxatio7i  no  Tyra7i7iy , 

ii.  42  ;  —  wig,  ii.  104  n. ;  Junius ,  i. 
173;  member  for  Southwark,  i.  173  n., 
292  ;  portraits  of  his  friends,  i.  342  ; 
man-servant,  ii.  449;  scenery,  i.  215; 
silver  plate,  ii.  467  ;  son’s  death,  i.  75  ; 
will,  ii.  121  n. ;  mentioned,  i.  57,  149; 
ii.  140,  192  n.,  236. 

Thrale,  Henry,  junior,  i.  75  n.,  189  n., 
206  n.,  238  ;  ii.  1S8  n.,  446. 

Thrale,  Hester  Lynch  (Miss  Salusbury, 
afterwards  Mrs.  Piozzi),  Anecdotes,  i. 
141-35 1  ;  —  publication,  i.  143  ;  — 
composition,  i.  298,  309  ;  baptism,  i. 
259  71. ;  Baretti  flatters  her,  ii.  40 ; 
Bath,  i.  hi  n.,  340;  ii.  140,  294; 
Borough  election,  i.  293  n. ;  Boswell 
criticizes  her,  i.  167  71.,  175  71.,  176  «., 
180  71.,  321  71.,  341  71. ;  —  criticized  by 
her,  i.  175,  351 ;  ii.  44  ;  Burney,  Susan, 
i.  no  7i. ;  Candide,  ii.  190  n. ;  com¬ 
mon-place  book,  i.  176;  described  by 
Dr.  Campbell,  ii.  40;  dress,  i.  331; 


5°6 


Index. 


Thrale,  Hester  Lynch . Vanity  of  Human  Wishes. 


flattery,  i.  344  n. ;  ii.  202  n.,  224  n.  ; 
Garrick,  ii.  249  #. ;  Garrick,  Mrs.,  ii. 
194  n. ;  Hogarth,  i.  240 ;  house  in 
Grosvenor  Square,  ii.  193  n.  ;  —  in 
Harley  Street,  i.  106  n. ;  —  in  Argyle 
Street,  ii.  451  n.  ;  income,  i.  340  n. ; 
Johnson,  advice  about  parties,  ii.  1 4  n. ; 

—  biographers,  i.  166  ;  —  death,  i. 
209;  —  Dictionary,  i.  182;  —  dis¬ 
puting  with,  i.  189  n. ;  —  estranged 
from,  ii.  337 ;  —  favourite  couplet,  ii. 
422  ;  —  health,  ii.  353  ;  —  ill-humour, 
i.  242  n. ;  — ,  imitated,  i.  347  n. ;  — 
introduced  to  her,  i.  232,  422;  — late 
hours,  ii.  120;  —  letters,  ii.  363  n. ; 

—  life  soothed,  i.  234  n.,  422  n. ;  — 
‘knows  nothing  of  her,’  ii.  140;  — 
‘  my  mistress,’  i.  149  ;  —  neglected, 

i.  330  n. ;  —  praise  of  her,  ii.  272  ;  — 
and  Prior,  ii.  371  n. ;  —  roughness,  ii. 
273 ;  —  takes  leave  of  her,  i.  111  ;  — 
verses,  i.  194,  258-60,  460  ;  —  wagers, 

ii.  46  ;  —  wearies  her  patience,  i.  341 ; 

—  week,  ii.  117  n.;  lawsuit,  i.  339; 
learning,  i.  152  n. ;  marriage,  second, 
ii-  I7°>  353  5  money,  care  of,  ii.  353; 
Montagu’s  Essay ,  i.  351;  Paris,  jour¬ 
ney  to,  i.  74  n.;  portrait,  i.  342  n. ; 
praise,  i.  185  n. ;  profanity,  ii.  18  n.  ; 
quotes  Foster,  ii.  41  ;  sale  catalogue,  ii. 
467  ;  son’s  death,  ii.  447-8  ;  Streatham, 

i.  108  n. ;  table,  ii.  43,  352;  Thrale’s 
death,  i.  96;  ii.  101  n.  ;  verses,  i.  197, 
343;  ii.  251  n.,  353;  Williams,  Miss, 

ii.  175  ;  wit,  ii.  353;  Young  criticized, 

i.  258  ;  mentioned,  i.  104,  105 ;  ii.  50. 
Thrale,  Hester  Maria  (Viscountess 

Keith),  i.  92  n.,  103,  260,  291  ;  ii. 
294,  451. 

Thrale,  Ralph,  i.  238. 

Thurlow,  Lord  Chancellor,  i.  441  ;  ii. 
150,  369,  388;  Johnson’s  pension,  i. 
441  ;  ii.  150,  369,  388,  456. 

Thyer,  — ,  ii.  364. 

Tiberius,  i.  486. 

Tickell,  Richard,  ii.  26  n. 

Tickell,  Thomas,  i.  482. 

Tillotson,  Archbishop,  i.  207,  466  ; 

ii.  429. 

Tindal,  Dr.,  ii.  357. 

Tolcher,  Alderman,  ii.  419. 


Tom  Thumb,  i.  203. 

Tonson,  Jacob,  the  younger,  i.  382  n. ; 

ii.  320. 

Tony,  i.  281. 

Tooke,  Horne,  i.  405  n. ;  ii.  71  n.,  339. 
Tories,  i.  171. 

Torre,  ii.  321,  377. 

Touching,  i.  267  n. 

Tower  of  London,  ii.  52  n. 

Towers,  Dr.  Joseph,  i.  396,  478,  482  n. 
Townmalling,  i.  47. 

Townshend,  Rt.  Hon.  Charles,  i.  172  n. 
Townshend,  a  printer,  ii.  7  n. 
Traders,  retired,  i.  293  n. 
Transcendental,  i.  294  n. 

Trapp,  Dr.  Joseph,  i.  171. 

Trevelyan,  Sir  George,  Bart.,  i.  436  n. 
Trevelyan,  Lady,  ii.  178. 

Trimmer,  Mrs.,  i.  156  n.,  157  n. 
Trimmer,  — ,  i.  253  n. 

Trinitarian  controversy,  ii.  305  n. 
Trocar,  ii.  1 35  n. 

Trotter,  T.,  an  engraver,  ii.  164. 
Trundle,  i.  312  n. 

Trysull,  i.  132. 

Tucker,  Dean  Josiah,  D.D.,  i.  202  n. ; 
ii.  186-7. 

Tucker,  Miss,  i.  300  n. 

Tull,  Jethro,  ii.  228  n. 

Turenne,  i.  270  n .  • 

Turkey,  ii.  391. 

Tyers,  Jonathan,  ii.  335  n. 

Tyers,  Thomas,  i.  290,  347  n .,  458 ; 
ii-  379,  380  n. ;  Anecdotes,  ii.  335-81. 

U. 

Universal  History,  i.  267,  445;  ii.  123, 
372- 

Unwin,  T.  Fisher,  ii.  468. 

Upper  Ossory,  Earl  of,  ii.  137  n. 

Urns,  ii.  428. 

Usher,  Archbishop,  i.  461 ;  ii.  48. 
Uttoxeter,  ii.  427. 

V. 

Vacation  tasks,  i.  161. 

Valentia,  Lord,  ii.  12  n. 

Vandewall,  Samuel,  i.  300  n. 
Vandyke,  i.  481. 

Vanity  of  Human  Wishes,  i.  1S0,  386, 
387  n.,  460;  ii.  313,  422. 


Index . 


5°7 


Vansittart,  — . Warburton,  William. 


Vansittart,  — ,  ii.  367,  381. 

Vellication ,  i.  98  n. 

Venice,  ii.  258. 

Vergennes,  Viscount  de,  i.  109  n. 
Versailles,  i.  216. 

Vesey,  Agmondesham,  i.  229  n.  ;  ii. 
137  n.,  2 65. 

Vesey,  Mrs.,  i.  168  n.  ;  ii.  12  n.,  58, 
200,  421  n. 

Vesuvius  Caesar,  ii.  408. 

Victoria,  Queen,  ii.  64  n.,  305  n. 

Vida,  i.  366. 

Vine  leaves,  i.  113. 

Virgil,  Addison  his  Jupiter,  i.  469; 
described  by  Horace,  i.  459  n. ;  John¬ 
son  read  him,  i.  70,  319  n. ;  Milton’s 
diction,  ii.  165  n. ;  mode  of  composi¬ 
tion,  i.  425;  quoted  Aeneid ,  i.  488; 
ii-  l7°,  345>  353,  376  5  Georgies,  ii. 

364- 

Visitants ,  i.  98  n. 

Visitor,  The,  i.  413. 

Voltaire,  acerrimi  ingenii,  ii.  308 ; 
Addison’s  Cato,  ii.  13  n. ;  attacks  on 
authors,  i.  271  n.;  Benserade,  i.  195  n. ; 
Candide ,  i.  472;  ii.  74,  190  n. ;  Ches¬ 
terfield,  i.  406  n. ;  gravity,  i.  326  n. ; 
Hume’s  style,  ii.  10  ;  Lewis  XIV,  ii. 
354 ;  Charles  XII,  ii.  306  ;  music,  ii. 
308  n. ;  Newton,  i.  417  n. ;  ii.  360; 
Shakespeare,  ii.  307 ;  Siam,  King  of, 
i.  189  n. ;  Thames  boatman,  i.  248  n. ; 
Thomas’s  Eloge,  i.  434  n. 

Vossius,  i.  85. 

Vows,  i.  25,  299. 

Vyse,  Rev.  Dr.,  ii.  453. 

W. 

Wake,  Archbishop,  ii.  410;/. 

Wales,  ii.  54  n. 

Wales,  Prince  of,  ii.  93  n. 

Walker,  — ,  i.  137. 

Waller,  Edmund,  i.  483  n. ;  ii.  145, 
153,  371. 

Waller,  Sir  William,  i.  103. 
Walmsley,  Gilbert,  i.  367-9;  ii.  341, 
416. 

Walpole,  Horace,  Baron  Walpole,  ii. 
342- 

Walpole,  Horace  (fourth  Earl  of  Or- 
ford),  ancient  Romans,  i.  201  n. ;  An¬ 


son,  Lord,  i.  196  n. ;  Braganza,  ii. 
182;  Buckinger,  i.  188  n.\  Burgoyne, 
ii.  2 6n.;  Burke,  ii.  23  n.\  Cock  Lane 
Ghost,  ii.  355  n.  ;  Colebrooke,  Sir  G., 
i.  208  n.;  confuting,  ii.  66  n.,  438  n. ; 
Dante,  i.  333  n. ;  dinner-hour,  ii.  93  n.; 
Dodington,  ii.  104  n. ;  Elliot,  Dr.,  i. 
431  n. ;  father’s  maxim,  ii.  309  n. ; 
Garrick,  ii.  240  nr,  Gibbon,  ii.  233  nr, 
Gibraltar,  i.  242  n. ;  Grafton,  Duke  of, 

i.  203  n. ;  Guadagni,  i.  197  ;  Hawkins, 

ii.  79;  Hayley,  ii.  420  n.;  Heberden, 
ii.  150  nr,  Hervey,  Thomas,  ii.  114  n.; 
Hogarth,  i.  240  n. ;  Hottentot,  i. 
385  n. ;  Jenny’s  Whim,  ii.  172  n. ; 
Johnson’s  Debates ,  ii.  342  n.\  —  Life 
of  Lyttelton ,  ii.  421  n. ;  —  mad,  i. 

2 13  n. ;  Junius ,  i.  1 72  n. ;  King  of  Den¬ 
mark,  i.  183  nr,  Lennox,  Lady  Sarah, 
ii.  31  n. ;  Lennox,  Mrs.,  ii.  99  n. ; 
libels,  i.  275  n. ;  Macpherson’s  History , 
ii.  39  n. ;  Malone’s  Shakespeare,  ii. 
23  n. ;  Montagu,  Lady  M.  W.,  ii. 
175  n. ;  Montagu,  Mrs.,  ii.  272  n. ; 
mystery,  i.  326  n. ;  old  age,  i.  231  n. ; 
Piozzi’s  Anecdotes,  i.  143,  153  n.  ; 
Pitt  and  Fox,  ii.  458  n. ;  Princes  of 
Wales,  i.  180  nr,  ii.  119  nr,  prints,  i. 

214  n.  ;  prize-fighting,  i.  475  n. ;  public 
affairs  in  1779,  ii.  54  n. ;  Reynolds, 
ii.  31 1  n. ;  Robinson,  Sir  T.,  ii.  96  11.  ; 
satires  on  dead  kings,  ii.  35  n. ;  Seals, 
value  of  the,  i.  442  n.  ;  Sherlock’s 
Letters,  ii.  363  n.\  speeches,  i.  379  n. ; 
Tavistock,  Lord,  i.  252  nr,  Vesey, 
Mrs.,  ii.  59;  Zobeide ,  ii.  61  n. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  Debates,  i.  379 
Johnson  attacks  him,  i.  37 5  ;  —  De¬ 
bates,  i.  378;  — praises  him,  ii.  309; 
Shippen,  ii.  305. 

Walsingham,  Admiral,  ii.  68. 
Walsingham,  Boyle,  ii.  69  n. 

Walton,  Isaac,  ii.  128,  178. 

War,  ii.  16,  424. 

Warburton,  William,  D.D.,  Bishop  of 
Gloucester,  Addison  as  a  critic,  i. 
469  n. ;  —  and  Pope,  i.  482;  discon¬ 
certed,  ii.  99 ;  epitaphs,  ii.  378  n. ; 
flounders  well,  ii.  331  ;  great  powers, 
ii.  140;  Johnson  meets  him,  ii.  317; 
Shakespeare,  i.  381;  ii.  7,  331  n.\ 


5°8 


Index. 


Warburton,  William . Williams,  Anna. 


learning,  ii.  15;  marriage,  i.  300  n. ; 
Pope,  vindicates,  i.  374,  480 ;  ridicule 
and  truth,  i.  452  n.  ;  Shakespeare,  i. 
274  n.,  381,  382  n.,  473  ;  ii.  20  n .,  431 ; 
Voltaire,  ii.  308. 

Ward,  Seth,  i.  329  n. 

Warley  Common,  ii.  377. 

Warner,  Rev.  Richard,  ii.  426. 
Warrants,  general,  ii.  82. 

Warren,  Dr.,  i.  445;  ii.  23,  136,  137 n., 

399- 

Warren,  — ,  a  bookseller,  i.  364. 
Warton,  Rev.  Joseph,  D.D.,  Addison’s 
Cato,  ii.  13  n. ;  Adventurer,  i.  403  n.  ; 
Betterton,  ii.  242  n. ;  Freind’s  epitaphs, 
ii.  378  n. ;  Gray  and  Churchill,  ii. 
354  n.;  Jane  Shore,  i.  284  n. ;  John¬ 
son’s  Messiah,  i.  459  n. ;  Literary  Club, 
ii.  30,  137  n. ;  metaphysical  poets,  i. 
478  n. ;  Milton,  ii.  195  n. ;  Rymer, 
i.  187  n. ;  Temple  and  Pope,  i.  466  n. ; 
Winchester  College,  i.  280  n. 

Warton,  Rev.  Thomas,  Johnson’s  paro¬ 
dies,  i.  190 ;  —  degree,  i.  404 ;  Messiah, 
i.  460 ;  paper  in  the  Idler ,  i.  471  n. ; 
Hannah  More,  ii.  199;  Spenser,  ii.  372. 
Washington,  George,  ii.  2  n. 

Watson,  Richard,  Bishop  of  Llandaff, 
chemical  lectures,  i.  307  n.,  439  ;  dio¬ 
cese,  ii.  199  n. ;  attack  on  Gibbon,  ii. 
66  n. ;  Johnson  visits  him,  ii.  405  ; 
Test  Act,  ii.  193  n. 

Watson,  — ,  i.  1 24. 

Watts,  Isaac,  devotional  poetry,  i.  284 n.\ 
Hottentots,  i.  384  n. ;  Improvement  of 
the  Mind,  ii.  2 ;  Johnson’s  Life,  i. 
487 ;  sheltered,  ii.  140  n. 

Watts,  — ,  a  printer,  i.  482  n. 
Weather,  i.  288  n. 

Webster,  Daniel,  i.  330  n. 
Wedderburne,  Alexander  (Lord 
Loughborough,  Earl  of  Rosslyn), 
Johnson’s  Debates,  i.  378  ;  ii.  342  n. ; 
—  pension,  i.  417 ;  rise,  i.  349. 
Welch,  Saunders,  i.  85  n. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  Tennyson’s  Ode, 
i.  296  n. ;  autographs,  i.  462  n. ;  Ca¬ 
tholic  Relief  Bill,  ii.  207  n. 
Wentworth,  Peter,  i.  134  n. 
Wentworth  or  Winkworth,  i.  159;/., 
361. 


Wesley,  Rev.  John,  takes  leave  of 
leisure,  i.  5  n.\  preaches  at  St.  Cle¬ 
ment’s,  i.  63 ;  eminent,  i.  300  n. ; 
sister,  ii.  147  n. ;  Dr.  Dodd,  ii.  282  n. 
West,  Benjamin,  i.  131  n. ;  ii.  388,  426. 
West  Indies,  i.  243 ;  ii.  301. 
Westby-Gibson,  Dr.,  ii.  340  n. 
Westcote,  Lord,  i.  342  n. 
Westminster  Abbey,  Johnson’s  funeral 
and  grave,  i.  448;  ii.  133,  136,  323, 
378,  388  ;  refuses  to  visit  it,  ii.  175. 
Westminster  Bridge,  i.  336. 
Wetherell,  Rev.  Nathan,  D.D.,  i.  71  ; 
ii.  53,  406. 

Wharton,  Marquis  of,  i.  174. 

Wheat,  price  of,  ii.  86  n. 

Whigs,  Trapp’s  and  Browne’s  epigrams, 
i.  171  ;  the  devil  appearing  to  them, 

i.  174;  severity  towards  the  poor,  i. 
204;  Johnson’s  Debates,  i.  379;  — 
prejudices,  ii.  92 ;  rascals,  ii.  393. 

Whitby,  — ,  i.  364  n. 

White,  Rev.  Henry,  ii.  426  n, 
Whitefield,  Rev.  George,  ii.  87  n., 
377  n- 

Whitehead,  William,  i.  220,  383. 

Whole  Duty  of  Man,  i.  98. 

Wickedness,  ii.  288. 

Wickins,  —  ii.  427. 

Wilcox,  — ,  i.  380. 

Wilding,  James,  ii.  189  n. 

Wilkes,  Israel,  ii.  257  n. 

Wilkes,  John,  Boswell  dines  with  him, 

ii.  21;  brother,  ii.  257;  described 
by  Lord  Mansfield,  ii.  373  n.  ;  dinner 
at  Dilly’s,  ii.  403;  expelled  House  of 
Commons,  i.  425-6  ;  Garrick,  ii.  247  n. ; 
general  warrants,  ii.  82  n.  ;  Johnson, 
ii.  98  n.,  373,  440;  Junius ,  i.  172  n.  ; 
mentioned,  ii.  74. 

Wilkinson,  Dr.,  ii.  56^. 

Wilkinson,  Misses,  ii.  171,  174. 
William  III,  Johnson’s  dislike  of  him, 

i.  285 ;  indifference  to  literature,  i. 
467  ;  Irish  rebellion,  ii.  55  n. 

Williams,  Anna,  death,  i.  114,  116  n., 
439  5  ii-  337  n-  >  described  by  Miss 
Hawkins,  ii.  141 ;  —  by  Lady  Knight, 

ii.  171-5  ;  —  by  Hannah  More,  ii.  180  ; 
—  by  Bishop  Percy,  ii.  217;  —  by 
Miss  Reynolds,  ii.  293;  Dictionary, 


Index. 


5°9 


Williams,  Anna . Zenobia,  Count. 


ii.  436 ;  Johnson’s  antics,  ii.  273 ; 
—  house,  inmate  of,  i.  401-3 ;  ii. 
115,  119,  259  n.,  411  n. ;  leaves  it, 
i.  416;  returns,  i.  420;  —  takes  tea 
with  her,  ii.  326,  333 ;  Miscellanies , 

i.  403  ;  ii.  172,  279  n.  ;  purity,  ii.  438  ; 

visits  Percy,  ii.  440  ;  mentioned,  i.  30, 
106,  205  391  n. ;  ii.  129, 188,  298  n., 

442>  453- 

Williams,  Rev.  — ,  ii.  405. 

Williams,  Zachariah,  i.  401. 

Wills,  ii.  124  n. 

WTllymot,  — ,  i.  137. 

Windham,  Right  Hon.  William,  cancel 
in  Life  of  Johnson,  ii.  34  n. ;  character, 

ii.  382  n. ;  Diary,  ii.  382-8;  Essex 
Head  Club,  ii.  221  ;  Johnson’s  death, 
ii.  157  n.,  158,  382-88  ;  Literary  Club, 
ii.  25  n.,  32  ;  Malone’s  Shakespeare,  ii- 
24;  ‘pretty rascal,’ ii.  258 n.;  mentioned, 
i.  106,  303  n.,  416  n. ;  ii.  24,  36  n. 

Wine,  i.  321,  371  n. ;  ii.  44,  322,  333. 

See  under  Johnson. 

WTnsor,  Justin,  LL.D.,  i.  402  n. 

W  instanley,  Rev.  Mr.,  ii.  204. 
Winter’s  Walk,  ii.  359  n. 

WlT,  i.  175  n. 

Wives,  caprices,  i.  250;  ‘  honey- suckle,' 
i.  264;  choice  of  one,  i.  314;  ii.  3095 
learned,  ii.  11. 

Woffington,  Margaret  (Peg),  ii.  239. 
Women,  affecting  learning,  ii.  17; 
amusements,  i.  328 ;  delight  in  sur¬ 
prising,  i.  326;  integrity,  i.  327;  men 
desire  to  be  liked  by  them,  ii.  143,  326  ; 
more  genteel  than  men,  ii.  243  n.; 
Papists,  i.  1 16  n.  ;  pecuniary  favours, 
i.  326 ;  silence,  ii.  303. 

Wood,  Antony  k,  ii.  35  n. 


Wood,  Robert,  i.  213. 

Woodhouse,  — ,  i.  232. 

Wordsworth,  William,  birth,  contem¬ 
porary  of  Johnson,  i.  150  n. ;  Dryden’s 
night,  i.  187  n.  ;  Percy’s  Reliques ,  i. 
192  n. ;  metaphysical  poets,  i.  477  n.  ; 
Scotch  historians,  ii.  10  n.;  anticipated 
by  Warton,  ii.  13  n.  ;  Epistle  to  Beau¬ 
mont ,  ii.  233  n. 

World,  wickedness  exaggerated,  i.  208, 
262;  ‘ the  world,’  i.  253;  natural  de¬ 
pravity,  i.  207,  268,  328;  its  judge¬ 
ments,  i.  315  ;  ii.  143  ;  where  studied, 
i.  324;  well-constructed,  i.  327;  hap¬ 
piness,  i.  334.  See  also  under  Life. 

World ,  The,  ii.  349,  351. 

Wortley,  Lady  Mary,  i.  319  ;  ii.  175. 

Woty,  — ,  i.  176  71. 

Wraxall,  Sir  Nathaniel,  Amelia,  i. 
297  n. ;  Blue  Stockings,  ii.  59  n. ;  Dr. 
Dodd,  ii.  283  n. ;  Mrs.  Montagu,  ii. 
422. 

Wright,  Richard,  i.  125. 

Wright,  — ,  i.  112. 

Writing  for  money,  i.  181  ;  ii.  73,  90. 

Wynne,  Sir  Thomas  and  Lady,  i.  264 n. 

X. 

Xenophon,  i.  112,  162,  184. 

Y. 

Yonge,  Sir  William,  i.  463. 

Yorke,  Sir  Joseph,  ii.  420  n. 

Young,  Arthur,  i.  150  n.,  217  n.,  302  n. 

Young,  Rev.  Edward,  D.C.L.,  i.  84^., 
186,  258,  344  n. ;  ii.  95  n.,  368. 

Z. 

Zenobia,  Count,  ii.  158. 


DICTA  PHILOSOPHI 


A  CONCORDANCE  OF  JOHNSON’S  SAYINGS 


DICTA  PHILOSOPHI 


A  CONCORDANCE  OF  JOHNSON’S  SAYINGS1 


Abilities . Coek-boats. 


A. 

Abilities.  ‘  His  abilities  are  just  suffi¬ 
cient,  Sir,  to  enable  him  to  select  the 
black  hairs  from  the  white  ones  for  the 
use  of  the  periwig-makers,’  ii.  316. 

Abstinence.  ‘  Abstinence  is  as  easy  to 
me  as  temperance  would  be  difficult/ 
ii.  197. 

Abuse.  ‘  Let  us  hear,  Sir,  no  general 
abuse ;  the  law  is  the  last  result  of 
human  wisdom  acting  upon  human 
experience  for  the  benefit  of  the  public/ 
i.  223. 

Appetite.  ‘  Whoever  lays  up  his  penny 
rather  than  part  with  it  for  a  cake  at 
least  is  not  the  slave  of  gross  appetite,’ 

i.  251.  ‘A  man  who  rides  out  for  an 
appetite  consults  but  little  the  dignity 
of  human  nature/  ii.  10. 

Argument.  ‘  You  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  motive  of  counsel,  but  you 
ought  to  weigh  their  argument/  ii. 
409- 

Author.  ‘  The  best  part  of  every  author 
is  in  general  to  be  found  in  his  book/ 

ii.  310. 

B. 

Belly.  ‘  As  if  one  could  fill  one’s  belly 
with  hearing  soft  murmurs  or  looking 
at  rough  cascades,’  i.  323. 

Blackamoor.  ‘A  talking  blackamoor 
were  better  than  a  white  creature  who 
adds  nothing  to  life,  and  by  sitting 
down  before  one  thus  desperately  silent 


takes  away  the  confidence  one  should 
have  in  the  company  of  her  chair  if 
she  were  once  out  of  it/  i.  289. 

Blemishes.  *No  man  takes  upon  himseli 
small  blemishes  without  supposing  that 
great  abilities  are  attributed  to  him,’  ii. 

J53- 

Book.  ‘  A  man  may  hide  his  head  in  a 
hole  ;  he  may  go  into  the  country,  and 
publish  a  book  now  and  then  which 
nobody  reads,  and  then  complain  he  is 
neglected/  i.  315.  ‘  Books  without  the 
knowledge  of  life  are  useless  ;  for  what 
should  books  teach  but  the  art  of 
living?’  i.  324. 

Bread-sauce.  ‘  A  Brussels  trimming  is 
like  bread-sauce;  it  takes  away  the 
glow  of  colour  from  the  gown  and 
gives  you  nothing  instead  of  it/  i.  338. 

Business.  1  Fix  on  some  business  where 
much  money  may  be  got  and  little 
virtue  risked/  i.  314. 

C. 

Cap.  ‘  When  she  wears  a  large  cap  I  can 
talk  to  her/  i.  338. 

Catiline.  ‘  He  talked  to  me  at  club 
one  day  concerning  Catiline’s  con¬ 
spiracy — so  I  withdrew  my  attention 
and  thought  about  Tom  Thumb/  i.  203. 

Cock-boats.  ‘  I  have  sailed  a  long  and 
painful  voyage  round  the  world  of  the 
English  language ;  and  does  he  now 
send  out  two  cock-boats  to  tow  me  into 
harbour?  ’  i.  405. 


1  In  this  Concordance  are  not  included  those  of  Johnson’s  sayings  which  have  been 
already  given  in  the  Dicta  Philosophi  at  the  end  of  the  sixth  volume  of  the  Life. 

VOL.  II.  L  1 


5*4 


Dicta  Philosophi. 


Complainer . Female. 


Complainer.  *  I  hate  a  complainer,’  ii. 
140.  ‘  Complainers  are  always  loud 

and  clamorous,’  ii.  20. 

Concealment.  ‘Those  who  begin  by 
concealment  of  innocent  things  will 
soon  have  something  to  hide  which 
they  dare  not  bring  to  light,’  i.  326. 

Conversation.  £  Do  not  be  like  the 
spider,  man,  and  spin  conversation  thus 
incessantly  out  of  thy  own  bowels,’  i. 
276.  ‘  Why,  Sir,  his  conversation  does 
not  show  the  minute  hand,  but  he 
strikes  the  hour  very  correctly,’  ii. 
169. 

Creaked.  ‘  When  a  door  has  creaked 
for  a  fortnight  together,  you  may  ob¬ 
serve  the  master  will  scarcely  give  six¬ 
pence  to  get  it  oiled,’  i.  264. 

D. 

Death.  1  When  Death’s  pale  horse  runs 
away  with  persons  on  full  speed  an 
active  physician  may  possibly  give  them 
a  turn  ;  but  if  he  carries  them  on  an  even 
slow  pace,  down  hill  too,  no  care  nor 
skill  can  save  them,’  i.  276. 

Deception.  ‘Sir,  don’t  tell  me  of  de¬ 
ception  ;  a  lie,  Sir,  is  a  lie,  whether  it 
be  a  lie  to  the  eye  or  a  lie  to  the  ear,’ 
ii.  428. 

Degenerating.  ‘  To  get  cows  from 
Alderney  or  waterfowl  from  China  only 
to  see  nature  degenerating  round  one 
is  a  poor  ambition  indeed,’  i.  324. 

Delicacy.  ‘  Delicacy  does  not  surely 
consist  in  impossibility  to  be  pleased,’ 
i.  329. 

Delicate.  ‘If  a  wench  wants  a  good 
gown  do  not  give  her  a  fine  smelling- 
bottle  because  that  is  more  delicate,’ 
i.  326. 

Despises.  ‘  No  man  thinks  much  of  that 
which  he  despises,’  ii.  245. 

Dignity.  ‘  Why,  Madam,  if  a  creature 
is  neither  capable  of  giving  dignity  to 
falsehood,  nor  is  willing  to  remain 
contented  with  the  truth,  he  deserves 
no  better  treatment,’  i.  243. 


Dinner.  ‘  A  man  is  in  general  better 
pleased  when  he  has  a  good  dinner 
upon  his  table  than  when  his  wife  talks 
Greek,’  ii.  11. 

Disgrace.  ‘  That  dunce  of  a  fellow 
helped  forward  the  general  disgrace  of 
humanity,’  i.  294. 

Dislike.  ‘  Lasting  dislike  is  often  the 
consequence  of  occasional  disgust,’  i. 
246. 

Diversion.  ‘  You  hunt  in  the  morning 
and  crowd  to  the  public  rooms  at  night, 
and  call  it  diversion  ;  when  your  heart 
knows  it  is  perishing  with  poverty  of 
pleasures,  and  your  wits  get  blunted 
for  want  of  some  other  mind  to  sharpen 
them  upon,’  i.  324. 

Dogmatise.  ‘  I  dogmatise  and  am  con¬ 
tradicted,  and  in  this  conflict  of  opinions 
and  sentiments  I  find  delight,’  ii.  92. 

Done.  ‘  Where  there  is  nothing  to  be 
done  something  must  be  endured,’  i. 
210. 

Doubt.  ‘  My  dear,  I  must  always  doubt 
of  that  which  has  not  yet  happened,’ 
ii.  207. 

Dwarf.  ‘  Chesterfield  ought  to  know  me 
better  than  to  think  me  capable  of 
contracting  myself  into  a  dwarf  that  he 
may  be  thought  a  giant,’  i.  405. 

E. 

Ease.  ‘  Contented  with  the  exchange  of 
fame  for  ease  he  e’en  resolves  to  let 
them  set  the  pillows  at  his  back,  and 
gives  no  further  proof  of  his  existence 
than  just  to  suck  the  jelly  that  prolongs 
it,’  i.  282. 

Eyes.  ‘  The  eyes  of  the  mind  are  like 
the  eyes  of  the  body,  they  can  see  but 
at  such  a  distance.  But  because  we 
cannot  see  beyond  this  point,  is  there 
nothing  beyond  it  ?  ’  ii.  287. 

F. 

Female.  ‘  And  this  is  the  voice  of  female 
friendship,  I  suppose,  when  the  hand 
of  the  hangman  would  be  softer,’  i. 
331- 


Dicta  Philosophi. 


5i5 


Folio . Manner. 


Folio.  ‘  No  man  reads  long  together 
with  a  folio  on  his  table/  ii.  2. 

Forgotten.  ‘  I  hope  the  day  will  never 
arrive  when  I  shall  be  the  object  of 
neither  calumny  nor  ridicule,  for  then 
I  shall  be  neglected  and  forgotten/  ii. 
420. 

Friends.  ‘  We  must  either  outlive  our 
friends  or  our  friends  must  outlive  us ; 
and  I  see  no  man  that  would  hesitate 
about  the  choice/  i.  230. 

G. 

Gaiety.  ‘  Those  who  resist  gaiety  will 
be  likely  for  the  most  part  to  fall  a 
sacrifice  to  appetite/  i.  219. 

Genius.  ‘  Never  ask  a  baby  of  seven 
years  old  which  way  his  genius  leads 
him,  when  we  all  know  that  a  boy  of 
seven  years  old  has  no  genius  for  any¬ 
thing  except  a  peg-top  and  an  apple- 
pie,’  i.  314. 

Guineas.  ‘  Why  did  not  the  King  make 
these  halfpence  guineas?’  i.  172. 

H. 

Hell.  ‘  I  do  allow  him  just  enough 
[, lumieres ]  to  light  him  to  hell/  i. 
211. 

Hoarding.  ‘  A  fellow  must  do  some¬ 
thing  ;  and  what  so  easy  to  a  narrow 
mind  as  hoarding  halfpence  till  they 
turn  into  sixpences?’  i.  251. 

Honour.  ‘Well,  Sir;  if  you  do  not  see 
the  honour  I  am  sure  I  feel  the  dis¬ 
grace/  i.  285. 

Hope.  ‘  Hope  is  an  amusement  rather 
than  a  good,  and  is  adapted  to  none  but 
very  tranquil  minds/  i.  278. 

Hunting.  ‘Hunting  is  the  labour  of 
the  savages  of  North  America,  but 
the  amusement  of  the  gentlemen  of 
England/  ii.  170. 

I. 

Ignorance.  ‘  Ignorance  to  a  wealthy 
lad  of  one-and-twenty  is  only  so  much 
fat  to  a  sick  sheep  ;  it  just  serves  to 
call  the  rooks  about  him/  i.  281. 


L. 

Laced.  ‘  If  every  man  who  wears  a  laced 
coat,  that  he  can  pay  for,  was  extirpated, 
who  would  miss  them  ?  ’  i.  253. 

Life.  ‘  Life  is  a  pill  which  none  of  us 
can  bear  to  swallow  without  gilding  ; 
yet  for  the  poor  we  delight  in  strip¬ 
ping  it  still  barer,  and  are  not  ashamed 
to  show  even  visible  displeasure  if  ever 
the  bitter  taste  is  taken  from  their 
mouths/  i.  205;  ‘Life  must  be  filled 
up,  and  the  man  who  is  not  capable  of 
intellectual  pleasures  must  content  him¬ 
self  with  such  as  his  senses  can  afford/ 
i.  251  ;  ‘Life  is  barren  enough  surely 
with  all  her  trappings  ;  let  us  therefore 
be  cautious  how  we  strip  her/  i.  345. 

Literature.  ‘  A  mere  literary  man  is 
a  dull  man  ;  a  man  who  is  solely  a  man 
of  business  is  a  selfish  man  ;  but  when 
literature  and  commerce  are  united  they 
make  a  respectable  man/  ii.  3S9. 

London.  ‘  Whoever  has  once  experi¬ 
enced  the  full  flow  of  London  talk, 
when  he  retires  to  country  friendships 
and  rural  sports,  must  either  be  con¬ 
tented  to  turn  baby  again  and  play 
with  the  rattle,  or  he  will  pine  away 
like  a  great  fish  in  a  little  pond,  and 
die  for  want  of  his  usual  food/  i.  324. 

Love.  ‘  Love  is  the  wisdom  of  a  fool 
and  the  folly  of  the  wise/  ii.  393. 

Lover.  ‘  The  companion  of  the  easy 
vacant  hour,  whose  compliance  with 
a  girl’s  opinions  can  flatter  her  vanity, 
and  whose  conversation  can  just  soothe, 
without  ever  stretching  her  mind,  that 
is  the  lover  to  be  feared/  i.  220. 

Luxurious.  ‘Depend  upon  it,  Sir,  every 
state  of  society  is  as  luxurious  as  it  can 
be/  ii.  97. 

Lumps.  ‘  One  cannot  love  lumps  of  flesh, 
and  little  infants  are  n othing  more/  i .  3  2  8 . 

M. 

Mad.  ‘Five  hours  of  the  four  and 
twenty  unemployed  are  enough  for  a 
man  to  go  mad  in,’  i.  301. 

Manner.  ‘  A  new  manner  of  writing ! 


L  1  2 


Dicta  Philosophi. 


Manuscript . Scoundrel. 


Buckinger  had  no  hands,  and  he  wrote 
his  name  with  his  toes  at  Charing 
Cross  for  half  a  crown  apiece ;  that 
was  a  new  manner  of  writing,’  i.  419. 

Manuscript.  ‘  Praise  is  the  tribute 
which  every  man  is  expected  to  pay 
for  the  grant  of  perusing  a  manu¬ 
script/  ii.  192. 

Marry.  ‘  A  man  should  marry  first,  for 
virtue  ;  secondly,  for  wit ;  thirdly,  for 
beauty  ;  and  fourthly,  for  money/  ii.  8. 

Mean.  c  Sir,  if  you  mean  nothing,  say 
nothing/  ii.  400. 

Meat.  ‘  What  signifies  going  thither  ? 
There  is  neither  meat,  drink,  nor  talk/ 
ii.  14. 

Mirror.  ‘  They  see  men  who  have 
merited  their  advancement  by  the  ex¬ 
ertion  and  improvement  of  those  talents 
which  God  had  given  them  ;  and  I  see 
not  why  they  should  avoid  the  mirror/ 
i*  349- 

Mirth.  ‘  The  size  of  a  man’s  under¬ 
standing  may  always  be  justly  measured 
by  his  mirth/  i.  345. 

Monkey.  ‘  Let  him  be  absurd,  I  beg  of 
you  ;  when  a  monkey  is  too  like  a  man, 
it  shocks  one/  i.  204. 

Money.  ‘  Why,  the  men  are  thinking  on 
their  money,  I  suppose,  and  the  women 
are  thinking  on  their  mops/  i.  253. 

Music.  ‘  Music  excites  in  my  mind 
no  ideas,  and  hinders  me  from  contem¬ 
plating  my  own/  ii.  103  ;  ‘  Music  is  the 
only  sensual  pleasure  without  vice/  ii. 
301.  ‘Difficult  do  you  call  it,  Sir? 
I  wish  it  were  impossible/  ii.  308. 

Mystery.  ‘  Where  secrecy  or  mystery 
begins,  vice  or  roguery  is  not  far  off/ 
ii.  1. 

O. 

Ocean.  ‘Never  mind  it,  Sir ;  perhaps  your 
friend  spells  ocean  with  an  s,’  ii.  404. 

P. 

Painting.  ‘  I  had  rather  see  the  por¬ 
trait  of  a  dog  that  I  know  than  all  the 
allegorical  paintings  they  can  show  me 
in  the  world/  ii.  15. 


Phlebotomised.  ‘  You  might  as  well 
bid  him  tell  you  who  phlebotomised 
Romulus,’  i.  294. 

Plants.  ‘  He  who  plants  a  forest  may 
doubtless  cut  down  a  hedge ;  yet  I 
could  wish,  methinks,  that  even  he 
would  wait  till  he  sees  his  young  plants 
grow,’  i.  345. 

Poker.  ‘  Why  yes,  Sir,  they  ’ll  do  any 
thing,  no  matter  how  odd  or  desperate, 
to  gain  their  point  ;  they  ’ll  catch  hold 
of  the  red-hot  end  of  a  poker  sooner 
than  not  get  possession  of  it/  ii.  397. 

Pulse.  ‘  This  man  has  a  pulse  in  his 
tongue/  ii.  18. 

Puppy.  ‘  When  in  anger  my  mother 
called  me  a  puppy,  I  asked  her  if  she 
knew  what  they  called  a  puppy’s 
mother/  i.  163. 

R. 

Rattle-box.  ‘  There  certainly  is  no 
harm  in  a  fellow’s  rattling  a  rattle- 
box  ;  only  don’t  let  him  think  that  he 
thunders/  i.  286. 

Religion.  ‘  A  principle  of  honour  or 
fear  of  the  world  will  many  times  keep 
a  man  in  decent  order  ;  but  when  a 
woman  loses  her  religion  she,  in 
general,  loses  the  only  tie  that  will 
restrain  her  actions/  ii.  309. 

Resentment.  *  The  cup  of  life  is  surely 
bitter  enough  without  squeezing  in  the 
hateful  rind  of  resentment/  i.  246. 

S. 

Sconced.  ‘  Sir,  you  have  sconced  me 
twopence  for  non-attendance  at  a  lec¬ 
ture  not  worth  a  penny/  i.  164. 

Scotland.  ‘  I  give  you  leave  to  say, 
and  you  may  quote  me  for  it,  that  there 
are  more  gentlemen  in  Scotland  than 
there  are  shoes,’  ii.  77. 

Scoundrel.  ‘  It  is  so  very  difficult  for 
a  sick  man  not  to  be  a  scoundrel/  i. 
267;  ‘Ready  to  become  a  scoundrel, 
Madam ;  with  a  little  more  spoiling 
you  will,  I  think,  make  me  a  complete 
rascal/  ib. ;  ‘A  man  is  a  scoundrel 
that  is  afraid  of  anything/  ii.  4  ;  ‘Who- 


Dicta  Philosophi . 


5X7 


Scruples . W  r  itten . 


ever  thinks  of  going  to  bed  before 
twelve  o’clock  is  a  scoundrel,’  ii.  19. 

Scruples.  *  Scruples  would  certainly 
make  men  miserable,  and  seldom  make 
them  good,’  i.  223. 

Sentimental.  ‘  The  poor  and  the  busy 
have  no  leisure  for  sentimental  sorrow,’ 
i.  252. 

Silver.  *  If  silver  is  dirty  it  is  not  the 
less  valuable  for  a  good  scouring,’  ii. 

4*4* 

Solitary.  ‘  The  solitary  mortal  is  cer¬ 
tainly  luxurious,  probably  superstitious, 
and  possibly  mad,’  i.  219. 

Solitude.  *  Solitude  is  dangerous  to 
reason  without  being  favourable  to 
virtue,’  i.  219. 

Story.  ‘  A  story  is  a  specimen  of 
human  manners,  and  derives  its  sole 
value  from  its  truth,’  i.  225. 

Suffer.  *  She  will  suffer  as  much  per¬ 
haps  as  your  horse  did  when  your  cow 
miscarried,’  i.  207. 

Sunday.  *  While  half  the  Christian 
world  is  permitted  to  dance  and  sing, 
and  celebrate  Sunday  as  a  day  of 
festivity,  how  comes  your  puritanical 
spirit  so  offended  with  frivolous  and 
empty  deviations  from  exactness  ?  ’ 
i.  301. 

Swim.  ‘No  man,  I  suppose,  leaps  at 
once  into  deep  water  who  does  not 
know  how  to  swim,’  i.  165. 

T. 

Tavern.  ‘No,  Sir;  there  is  nothing 
which  has  yet  been  contrived  by  man 
by  which  so  much  happiness  is  produced 
as  by  a  good  tavern  or  inn,’  ii.  253. 

Tea.  ‘  Sir,  I  did  not  count  your  glasses 
of  wine ;  why  should  you  number  up 
my  cups  of  tea  ?  ’  ii.  75. 

Tell.  ‘  A  man  can  tell  but  what  he 
knows,  and  I  never  got  any  further  than 
the  first  page,’  i.  332. 


Timidity.  ‘  How  many  men  in  a  year 
die  through  the  timidity  of  those  whom 
they  consult  for  health  !’  ii.  132. 

U. 

Under-dressed.  ‘  No  person  goes 
under-dressed  till  he  thinks  himself  of 
consequence  enough  to  forbear  carry¬ 
ing  the  badge  of  his  rank  upon  his 
back,’  i.  221. 

Understanding.  ‘You  feed  the 
chickens  till  you  starve  your  own  un¬ 
derstanding,’  i.  323. 

V. 

Virtues.  ‘Sir,  these  minor  virtues  are 
not  to  be  exercised  in  matters  of  such 
importance  as  this,’  ii.  124. 

W. 

Whig.  ‘  Take  it  upon  my  word  and  ex¬ 
perience  that  where  you  see  a  Whig 
you  see  a  rascal,’  ii.  393. 

Wolf.  ‘The  wolf  does  not  count  the 
sheep,’  i.  168. 

Woman.  ‘In  matters  of  business  no 
woman  stops  at  integrity,’  i.  327. 

World.  ‘  He  is  a  scholar  undoubtedly  ; 
but  remember  that  he  would  run  from 
the  world,  and  that  it  is  not  the  world’s 
business  to  run  after  him,’  i.  315; 
‘  Where  is  the  world  into  which  I  was 
born?’  ii.  207;  ‘I  thought  it  wiser 
and  better  to  take  the  world  as  it  goes,’ 
ii.  259. 

Writes.  ‘  Every  man  who  writes  thinks 
he  can  amuse  or  inform  mankind,  and 
they  must  be  the  best  judges  of  his 
pretensions,’  ii.  7. 

Writings.  ‘  Never  mind  whether  they 
praise  or  abuse  your  writings  ;  anything 
is  tolerable  except  oblivion,’  ii.  207. 

Written.  ‘What  is  written  without 
effort  is  in  general  read  without  plea¬ 
sure,’  ii.  309. 


the  end. 


OXFORD 

HUNTED  AT  THE  CLARENDON  PRESS 
BY  HORACE  HART,  M.A. 
PRINTER  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY 


PHILLIPS  ACADEMY 


867  00028  7131 


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